Week 13 of 52 Weeks of Hot Pads |Highway of Flying Geese

Welcome to the 13th week post of the 52 weeks of hot pads / quilted pot holders.

Here are the list of past week’s posts in this 52 Weeks of Hot Pads Challenge:

I thought it would be a great challenge for me to do a pot holder a.k.a hot pads every single week of 2019.

I am planning on having it displayed in my kitchen. They make great decor don’t they?

While I am at it, I am going to be sharing with you a simple tutorial on the process.

You can join in the challenge and make the same hot pads I make every week with the same design or any of your own choice.

Highway of Geese Hot Pad

There are affiliate links within this post. Please find the full disclosure here.

I am a little behind, but I have a feeling that this is the week I’ll catch up. So hopefully, this week I’ll have two more up (ignore the weeks, I still want to keep it 52 weeks -LOL)

For this post, I have scrappy flying geese blocks!

Each of the flying geese block measures 3.5″ x 2″ unfinished. And the hot pad with the strip in the middle made a 8″ x 8″ square hot pad.

Things I love & makes this project a lot more fun:

This ruler set – perfect size all of them
This rotating mat – can’t imagine one without this these days.
This Spray Baste – have always been a fan of spray baste, for small quilted projects – a must!
This Batting – the perfect one for hot pads

Making the Blocks:

For each of the flying geese block you’ll need:

2 pieces – 2.5″ background fabric (I chose scrappy colourful fabrics)

1 piece – 4″ x 2.5″ geese fabric (mine is all low volume fabrics)

We shall make a block that we will trim to the exact size. Just for accuracy. (funny story later)

Then placing the square right sides together and draw a diagonal line across the two corner.

I just want to mention that I got this new ruler in the mail this week. I ordered it a couple of weeks ago from amazon, and I have to say, I really love this tiny one!! So useful.

The ruler set comes in three like this:

It was really worth it. It is my first time trying out Omnigrid, and although I still need time to get used to the thicker lines and the markings (especially the 4 by 8 ones), I have to say I love the yellow bright lines so far!

You can find the set of rulers HERE>

Once you have marked, you can start piecing by stitching right on top of the drawn line.

The trim it off. The little ruler comes in handy again.

Flip open the first side of the corner triangle, then place the other square right sides together in opposite direction and sew it on.

Repeat the trimming on this side.

Press and let’s trim the flying geese to size.

Why do I do this? I often get wonky geese, and nowadays I love trimming it down to the correct size rather than sewing the wonky seams.

The target is to get it to the size of 3.5″ x 2″.

First, I align a 1/4″ above the point of the geese.Trim.

This will ensure I will have a nice 1/4″ seam allowance so my flying geese points won’t be cut off.

The I align the rectangle so that the height measures 2″ under the ruler and trim it.

Now I trim the sides. I use the cutoff at the bottom as a guide.

Do it for the other side.

Another way to do it:

Align the centre of the geese to 1/2 of the total width. In this case, it was the 1.75″ mark (the final width is 3.5″). And I made sure there is 1/4″ seam allowance above the centre point of the geese.

I trim the side and the top.

Turn to the other two untrimmed sides and repeat. This is when using the rotating mat is very useful. Especially if you are trimming lots of these blocks.

I use a small pink one that I love – you can find it HERE> if you’d like to check it out.

Voila, a perfectly trimmed to size geese block.

Make 10 of these flying geese blocks.

Piece the blocks together

I arrange mine so that there is a 2.5″ strip to be sewn down the middle and the geese is flying the opposite direction – just like on the highway.

That perfect 1/4″ seam.

I press them towards the geese as I find that is the way the seams wants to be settling.

Piece the centre strip (the strip measures 2.5″ x 8″). I picked one from my scrap box and just slap it on. I love the scrappiness look.

Basting

Make a quilt sandwich and baste it. I personally love basting using spray especially for small projects like this. 505 Spray is my favourite. Have you tried spray basting?

For these hot pads I love using either double batting, or the .

I decided to go play around with free motion quilting. If you want some idea on how to quilt flying geese blocks : check out this post HERE>

Mine is far from perfect, but I love to practice getting it the path right without having to snip off and picking up the foot.

Surely, was a fun one to try out.

Time to practice your quilting skill..

Try it!

I always, always recommend people to practice their skills on little projects like these. They don’t go to waste and you’ll get satisfaction to continue on practicing.