Most quilters who break a rule do it by accident and then decide they meant to. Fallon, who quilts as Sew Be It Quilts, did it the other way around. She named the two rules she was going to break before she cut a single piece, and then made a star quilt block that proves both of them were only habits.
The first was the background. A star block usually sits on a solid and the star carries the print, and she turned that around, a printed background behind three solid stars, for the plainest of reasons: she is trying not to buy fabric this year and that was what the shelf had. The second is the block itself. Two corners get flying geese, the other two get half rectangle triangles, so two of the points are the ordinary sawtooth kind and two are stretched out long. Nothing about it is balanced, and it holds together anyway.
The half rectangle triangles are the part worth having in writing, because they are where these blocks usually go wrong. She marks a diagonal from corner to corner on the wrong side of the two solid rectangles and marks them in opposite directions, one line each way. Then she does not line the two rectangles up edge to edge. She tilts the solid one so the drawn line runs corner to corner across the pair, sews a quarter inch either side, and cuts on the line. Two of the four get pressed toward the solid and two toward the print, so when the points meet they nest instead of fighting, and both units trim to 6 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches. The flying geese trim to 3 1/2 by 6 1/2.
There is a second small idea in the layout. The sashing goes on two sides of each block only, the two with the flying geese, and the blocks are then turned so a sashed side always lands against a side without sashing. One strip does the work of two.
If you want the flying geese in a size this pattern does not give you, our guide to flying geese methods and sizes has three methods and the cutting numbers for each finished size.
The channel is Sew Be It Quilts, where Fallon posts quilting hacks and step by step tutorials for beginners.
