Nesting Geese Border Tutorial

Last week I showed you a Migrating Geese Border Tutorial inspired by a Youtube video by Deb Tucker. This week I want to show you how to make a “Nesting Geese” border for your quilt. This is a quilt that I designed last Spring and today is the first time it has appeared on my website. The center is made by my favorite method for making a a throw quilt to accent a room. I call this method Four Blocks and a Border.

Cutting Instructions: You can use any size Qube and the block will be the finished size of the Qube that you use.

Background Fabric:
- Cut 4 Shape 3 Half Square Triangles (HST)
- Cut 4 Shape 4 Quarter Square Triangles (QST)
Color Fabric (may be assorted colors or a single color:
- Cut 4 Shape 4 Quarter Square Triangles

Step 1: Sew a light and a dark Shape 4 QST sewing the long sides of the QST together as shown. Make two QST subunits

Step 2: Sew a dark Shape 4 QST to the left side of one of the Shape 4 QST subunits and a light Shape 4 QST to the right side of the Shape 4 QST subunit. This is for one half of the quilt block. You will be stitching a short side of the Shape 4 QSTs together.It works best for me to lay these out on a felt board before stitching to be sure that the correct sides are stitched together.

Step 3: Sew a dark Shape 4 QST to the left side of the other Shape 4 QST subunit and a light Shape 4 QST to the right side of the Shape 4 QST subunit. This is for the other half of the quilt block.

Step 4: Sew a Shape 3 HST to the top and a Shape 3 HST to the bottom of the Shape 4 QST unit. This completes one half of the block.

Step 5: Sew a Shape 3 HST to the top and a Shape 3 HST to the bottom of the Shape 4 QST unit. This completes the second half of the block.

Step 6: Sew the two halves of the block together to complete the quilt block. Note that the V of the geese is at the bottom of the quilt block.

Note: Another option is to reverse the two halves of the block to make a block with the V of the geese at the top of the quilt block.
And a third option is to use a half block to complete a border row as needed to make the length required for your border. The entire border can be made with half block units to fit your quilt top. You can see in the quilt below how a half block was used to finish each border on the quilt.

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