Swirling Geese in a Quilt

I hope you are finding ways to stay cool.  It has been super hot in MN this week, so I've been trying to get caught up on a number of computer projects.  And I need to find some time to settle on a project (or two) for my quilt retreat next weekend.

In this weeks EQ8 video, I had fun playing with the Swath tool.  If you haven't had a chance to use it -- let me share my tips with you.  

Swirling Geese EQ8 Tutorial

For fabric I used the Stonehenge Basics collection by Linda Ludovico by Northcott.  I love the watercolor look of the fabrics and look forward to finding them at a quilt shop.

The hardest part of the entire process is drawing the swirly line.  For this, I recommend using the Freehand tool.  Just like working with pencil and paper, draw a simple swirl.

No worries if it doesn't look good.  There is always undo if you want to start over.

Once it is "passable", you can clean up the lines by:

• Moving nodes
• Moving the segment between nodes
• Repositioning the handles on both sides of a node
• Adding a node

​All of these are demoed in the video.

Swirly Line Drawn in Applique in EQ8

Swirly Geese Block created using Easy & Applique

Then you are ready to use the Swath tool.

Make sure you are at full screen view ( you can get there by selecting "Fit to Worktable" under the magnification tools.

Then double click on the swirly line.

There are a number of options to adjust your string of flying geese that I go through in the video.

Here are a few different quilt options.  The first was covered in the video.  But I decided to do a little more playing after the video was complete.

Swirling Geese Option 1 (from the video) uses just two fabrics.

Swirling Geese Option 2 I decided to scrap out the fabric for the geese. And then used two alternating backgrounds.

Swirling geese option 3. I scrapped the colors for the geese and used a separate background for the triangles connected to the geese. I also used a different block arrangement from Symmetry.

Swirling Geese Option 4 The silhouette goose was from the EQ8 Block library.

I have a couple thoughts on production.

The flying geese could easily be foundation pieced.  EQ even sections it for us under Print Foundation pattern.

You could print out the block and trace the background on freezer paper and applique the background to the flying geese swirl.  Although the pattern is designed for the geese to be sewn the background, turning under those seam allowances would be painful and isn't something I would recommend.

Alternatively, you could fuse the geese on the background.  Then you could just ignore the corners on each of those flying geese segments.

Swirling Geese Sectioning in EQ

Let me know what you decide to do with the swath tool.

I've set up a post in the Learning EQ Facebook group where you can share you ideas.

Swirling Geese Post in the Learning EQ Facebook group.

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Happy quilting.

​Kari

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Happy quilting.

​Kari