Part of the problem might be the size you want your finished geese. Usually the width of the finished piece is twice the hight. 2 x 4 would be more common. With the more common size your squares would be 5 1/4 and 2 7/8. To use this size geese the rest of the block pieces would be 4 1/2 (finished at four) inches for the center and 2 1/2 (finished at two) for the corner squares. The block will be 8 1/2 inches and finish at 8 inches. Using this small size change will save you a lot of headaches. If you must keep the original size I would say don't use any shortcut method and just do them the old fashioned way.