Today is Feburary 1, and that means it’s time for month 2 of Sunset Isle! How did you go with month one? I’ve seen so many stunning blocks popping up in the Sunset Isle Facebook group and on Instagram on #sunsetislequilt (see below), it makes me so happy to see you taking the pattern and making it your own with how you choose the fabrics.
MONTH 2
Row 2 is fairly straight forward… time to make lots of flying geese! To make things simple, I broke the row down into six blocks of 5 geese each, with each block containing one of each Liberty print. But if it makes more sense for you to divide it into five blocks of 6, or just wing it one by one, it’s up to you! These are three sets of 2 blocks sewn together:
TIPS FOR BULK FLYING GEESE
It may seem daunting – all the geese to make this month. But fear not! This is what batch-tasking is for, and also washi or painter’s tape.
“Tape?!”, I hear you say questioningly? Yes, tape. Traditionally, you would use a erasable fabric marker to draw a line on the wrong side of the background squares to mark the line you sew along to create the flying geese. Save a lot of time and use some washi or painters tape to create a line on your sewing machine that marks where the needle is – keep the corners of the fabric along this line to create the point-to-point seam.
I’m a huge fan of batch-tasking. I cut, sew, trim, and iron in batches, and trimming flying geese is no exception. I layer two flying geese and place them on the cutting mat so that the seam line runs along one of the markings on the mat. For flying geese units this size, I can do three in a row and use my 12 1/2″ long ruler.
Place the ruler on top of the flying geese so that the edge of the ruler is 1/4″ away from the seams, and trim.
If you haven’t tried this before, perhaps start with a single layer of geese until you’re comfortable to do more than one at a time! But you will be happy that you did – it saves a lot of time. If only you could easily press them just as quickly too!
CORAL FABRICS
If you’re following along with the rainbow theme, this month’s colour is coral. Which is totally on trend this year, thanks Pantone #LivingCoral! What exactly is coral? Well, it’s somewhere between red and orange; a sort of peachy pink; pink with more orange in it than red. If you compare coral fabrics with red and orange, it won’t match either end of the spectrum – it bridges the two.
Coral Liberty fabrics in between red and orange
Coral fabrics in between red and orange
Think peach, think coral, think orangey pink. And if your stash really isn’t coming up with the goods, you could do a mix of light reds and oranges – mixed across all the flying geese, it will blend beautifully.
OTHER THINGS TO NOTE
It’s never too late to join in! You can sign up for the pattern subscription for just $24 for the year (once-off payment) and receive the current month’s pattern right away.
To hang out with other QALers, come and join the Sunset Isle QAL group on Facebook to connect with everyone else sewing along! Share your plans, fabric pulls, progress and we’ll be there sewing and cheering along with you.
On Instagram, you can use #sunsetislequilt to share your project with us all, and feel free to tag us in the image too – @blossomheartquilts and @ava_and_neve – as that helps us find them all more easily.
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