May "Sew Easy Block of the Month"- Dutchman's Puzzle!

The written pattern can be purchased as part of the Classic Sew Easy Block of the Month Pattern and is available in the Shop.

Hello May!

 For our May block I thought we would do something classic with Flying Geese!

 This block is called the Dutchman’s Puzzle and I think it’s my favorite block so far!

The fun part about making this block is that we get to use the No Waste Flying Geese Method!

This method has been around for a while and I know there are several tutorials available online.  You can even check out the blog Diary of a Quilter – she has a chart that gives cutting instructions for all different sizes of flying geese! (Although her no waste flying geese are being used in a Sawtooth Star. Which is the pattern we used for January!)

 This block finishes out to 12″ (meaning 12.5″ unfinished), so you will be making flying geese that finish at 6.5″.

Tip: there will be overlap of the two background squares.  This is normal and expected.  It helps create the seam allowance needed so the finished flying geese will have nice points that don’t get cut off in the seam.

Repeat these steps with the coordinating fabric by marking diagonal lines on the background fabric and laying the background fabric squares, right sides together, with the coordinating fabric.

Sew 1/4″ seam on either side of the drawn diagonal lines.

After you have one stitched seam on each side of the line, cut along the drawn diagonal line. Cut carefully so you get an equal 1/4″ seam allowance on each piece.

Press the seams toward the background fabric.

After pressing, the blocks should look like hearts. You should have two main fabric “hearts” and two coordinating fabric “hearts”.

Next, draw a diagonal line corner to corner on the (4) remaining background squares.

 Place a background square in the corner of each “heart” shaped piece. Stitch a 1/4″ seam on either side of the diagonal line.  Then carefully cut on the diagonal drawn line.  Press the seam toward the background fabric.

You should now have eight flying geese. Yay! 

Trim them to 6.5″ x 3.5″ and take care to keep about 1/4″ of fabric above the point in the triangle.  This will also help to get nice points on your flying geese.

Layout

The easiest way to do the layout is to sew the flying geese together in pairs first. Sew them with all the coordinating fabric on top and the main fabric on bottom.

Then you rotate each set of flying geese to make the pinwheel design in the center with the main fabric.

I think this is the fastest block of all the blocks we have done so far! And I was able to use squares from my scrap stash too! So I’m pretty thrilled with how these flying geese all came together!

I would love to see your finished Dutchman Puzzle blocks! Be sure to drop a comment here and share your progress on social media with the hashtag #seweasybom – Happy Quilting everyone!

And be sure to join the FaceBook Group Sew Easy Block of the Month.

You can also follow me on Instagram for video tutorials on all these block patterns!