Why my Flying Geese kept coming out short
For the last top I needed 96 Flying Geese units finishing at 2 by 4 inches, so I used the four-at-a-time method: one 5 1/4 inch square for the goose and four 2 7/8 inch squares for the sky, sewn corner to corner and cut apart. The arithmetic says each unit should come out at 2 1/2 by 4 1/2 inches raw. The first eight came out at 4 3/8 wide and a little under 2 1/2 tall, and the point of every goose was clipped by about a sixteenth once I laid a ruler over the seam line.
I assumed the cutting was sloppy, so I re-cut the squares with a fresh blade and checked every one. Same result. Then I sewed a plain test strip: two 1 1/2 inch strips joined with what I thought was a quarter-inch seam should measure 2 1/2 inches across, and mine measured 2 3/8. The seam itself was fine. The missing eighth was being eaten by the fold of the fabric when I pressed the seam to one side, plus the thread’s own width. Over the two diagonal seams in a goose unit that adds up quickly.
The fix was moving the needle one position to the right, which on my machine makes a seam a few threads narrower than a true quarter inch, the scant quarter inch that everyone mentions and I had been ignoring. I also stopped pressing with steam, which was stretching the bias edges on the sky triangles, and switched to a dry iron and a firm press rather than a glide.
With those two changes the units came out at 4 1/2 by 2 1/2 within a thread or two, and the points sit exactly a quarter inch from the raw edge. For the remaining units I added 1/8 inch to the cutting sizes anyway and trimmed each one with a small square ruler, which took an extra evening but gave me 96 identical pieces. Trimming felt like admitting defeat; it turned out to be the most relaxing part of the whole top.
What I am keeping from this:
- Test the seam allowance with a strip set before cutting anything expensive.
- Steam and bias edges do not mix on small units.
- Cutting slightly oversize and trimming is cheaper than unpicking.