Hack the Geese!

Aside from some of the secret stuff going on at my desk right now, from time to time I pull out the Nearly Insane book by Liz Lois and make a block or two.

I mentioned last week, that the book is back on the sewing table, front and center.

I'm sewing the blocks in sequence using my own cheerful color scheme, featuring Liberty print fabrics.

When I opened the book to where I left off last time I had it out, I kinda winced.

I put the book away when I hit #25.

Keep in mind the the book is only a collection of full-sized block outlines. There are no instructions. I decided, when I started this project to stick with traditional piecing whenever possible.

For this block, sticking to that goal seemed something of a challenge. And in all honesty, I nearly skipped it altogether. This project is supposed to be joyful after all. If I didn't like the block now it wasn't going to get better as I made it, I surmised.

First of all, I hated the look of the block created by the weird triangles at the top and the bottom, making the block look like something of a mutant fish. Not to mention the challenge of creating the odd-shaped triangles. I decided they were out.

Once those shapes were out of the picture, the rest of the block breaks down into somewhat traditional elements.

Tiny half-square triangles, on-point squares, and itty-bitty flying geese.

But. . .

What on earth are these wonky shapes on the side?

It took me a lot of staring and head-scratching to see the regular old flying geese unit with a 1/2" wide bar separating the two pieces.

Ah-HA! I now knew what to do . . .

First I chose and cut the fabrics.

A 2x3-1/2" base rectangle
Two 2" squares marked with a corner to corner diagonal on the back
A 1x2" strip for the 'hack'
Times four, one for each side, replacing the two ugly fish fins.