Originally Posted by origamigoldfish

I have finished piecing clue six, and am starting to trim down the flying geese and am running into problems. I have never made flying geese before, and the first few I pressed open and checked for size were correct. Now that I am trimming them, the blocks are all just slightly oversized...probably from me trying too hard to press the blocks flat and distorting them with the iron.

My problem is that I am using that folded corner ruler Bonnie recommended to trim them down, because it is my only ruler with a 45 degree angle on the quarter inch line. When I lay the block flat under the middle of the ruler to check the overall size, the initial quarter inch seam above the point reads as oversized, and needs a sliver trimmed off. When I flip the ruler around to the edge where the 45 degree angle is, that first seam to square off is too short to even reach the edge of the ruler. (It's not on every ruler I checked...distance from the point to edge of fabric is about 3/16 of an inch). On the few that did not read as too short, once I made the first cut on the point side, I kept getting the same results with every other side. I figure this is part of making flying geese with all of the bias edges involved, but I do need to trim these down. Do I press them again and weigh them down while they cool so they're as flat as I can make them when I trim? Will a specialty ruler make this easier?

I trimmed down four sets before I realized what inconsistent results I'm getting and stopped. I don't want to accidentally trim them too short and have to start over...I don't have that much fabric left! Advice please? And thank you in advance!