On Ringo Lake Update: Part 1 Finished, On to Part 2!

Woo hoo!  I'm very pleased to say that I got Part 1 of Bonnie Hunter's latest mystery "On Ringo Lake" completed with time to spare (meaning on Thursday)!

I'm back today to link up with the skinny on Part 2 which dropped on Friday.  Future parts will drop every Friday until just after the New Year.  I'm hoping I can keep up which is especially challenging for me since I am also working on finishing up last year's "En Provence" mystery at the same time! 

Last week we got to dive into the turquoise, browns and neutrals for a little nine patch fun.  So what did Bonnie have in store for us this week?  We get to play with the other focus color -- the corals!  Also we get to make my favorite quilt block/unit:  Flying Geese!!

In her instructions, Bonnie has given a number of different ways to make the flying geese including using just squares and rectangles (sew and flip) or by cutting the necessary triangle shapes using either the Simple Folded Corner Ruler or her new Essential Triangle Tool both of which are available for sale on her website. 

However, she has also encouraged us to make them with the methods we are familiar with that will give us accurate size units.  Given how many we have to make, I prefer to use a method that makes more than one geese unit at a time.  For that, many people love the "No Waste" method.  If you Google it, you'll see many tutorials for that technique like this one from Fons & Porter. 

For many years my personal go-to method has been what Eleanor Burn's (of Quilt In A Day) originally called the "Triangle Pieced Rectangle" method.  I call it the "Two Squares Method" because like the "No Waste" method you make four geese at a time but you only have to cut two squares instead of five.  You can see Kimberly Jolly of the Fat Quarter Shop doing a demonstration of this method using Eleanor's Flying Geese ruler here.

There are different rulers to make different size geese so if you want to use the Quilt In A Day rulers make sure you get the ruler that makes the size you need.  Quilt In A Day also has a relatively new "all in one" geese trimming ruler called "Calling All Geese" which I've only managed to resist buying because I already have all the old rulers.  However, you can (and I did for some of these) also trim up the final units using a regular ruler which Eleanor demonstrated in her "Pioneer Sampler Series".  That series was the first time I saw her on TV and was when I first learned about the technique.  I do admit though, using her rulers can make the trimming a little simpler because with the markings on them, you don't have to think as much about what the correct measurements are to square them up.

I'm about 2/3 done with them so far.  I'll continue working on my geese all week and hopefully I can finish up in time to pick up the next part.  Head over to Bonnie's to see how everyone else did on the latest part of the "On Ringo Lake" mystery!