As a part of Candi’s Quilt Challenge of the month, we were asked to make a tutorial on the block that we made for last month’s challenge.  My block from last month’s challenge is called Homeward Bound.

Candi’s challenge called for 12 inch blocks, but I think if I ever make a quilt with this block, I will want it to be a  16 inch block. The tutorial will be fore the 12 inch block, but I will leave links to the templates for the 16 inch block at the end of this tutorial.

Home base block template, 3.5 inch by 3.5 inch square

Straight Geese Block Template, 3.5 inches by 5 inches

Corner Geese Block Template, 5 inches x 5 inches.

Cut out the nine blocks along the outer line.

Now, you have your templates ready!

The fabric choice in this block is up to you, but I used 7 charm squares for flying geese. I will refer to these fabrics as the “patterned fabric.”  I also used Kona Ash as the background, which will be referred to as the “background fabric” in the cutting directions.   These measurements are pretty close to the real dimensions; so if you need more wiggle room in your paper piecing, don’t be afraid to make the pieces of fabric ¼ inch to ½ inch larger than my suggestions.  Try making one block first before cutting fabric for all the other blocks.

Fabric measurements for 12-inch Homeward Bound Block:

Center “Home Base” block

Patterned Fabric:

-one 2 3/4  inch square to place in position 1.

Background fabric:

-two 2 3/4 inch squares cut in half on diagonal to make four triangles, to place in positions 2, 3, 4, and 5.

Four Straight geese Blocks:

Patterned Fabric:

-three (all same or each different) 4 1/4  inch squares, cut diagonally twice to produce twelve triangles to place in positions 1, 4, and 7 on all four blocks.

Background Fabric:

-twelve 2 3/4  inch  squares, cut diagonally once to make twenty-four triangles to place in positions 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, and 9 on all four blocks.

Four Corner (diagonal) Geese Blocks: 

Patterned Fabric:

-three (all same or each different) 4 1/4 inch squares, cut diagonally twice to produce twelve triangles to place in positions 2, 5, and 8 on all four blocks.

Background Fabric:

-two 4 inch squares, cut diagonally to make four triangles to place in position 1 on all four blocks.

-eight 1 3/4  inch x 3 1/4 inch rectangles for positions 3 and 4 on all four blocks.

-eight 1 3/4  inch x 4 1/4 inch rectangles for positions 6 and 7 on all four blocks.

I’m going to refer you now to a site that describes the paper piecing process very well, so if you don’t know how to paper piece, click here.

For home base block, begin by using a glue stick to glue the patterened square in position 1.

For straight geese blocks, begin by gluing a patterned triangle to position 1.

For corner geese blocks, begin by gluing a background triangle to position 1.