On the sixth day of Christmas my true love sent to me, six Geese a-laying
With Easter on the horizon and our garden birds in full nesting mode, it's the perfect month to meet our Goose a-laying and make the fourth of our Gold Rings, with the trimmings from this month's blue Breeze print or last month's coral Breeze print, I'll leave the choice to you.
Geese were a farmyard favourite in times of yore and roast goose was traditionally bought from the September goose fairs and eaten on the feast days of Michaelmas & Christmas, not the Turkey that we are so familiar with nowadays. Beady-eyed, strident and loyal, geese were also the guardians of the farmyard, as well as contributing down for mattresses, feathers for arrow flights and - most fascinating of all - quills.
Which means that when the Twelve Days of Christmas was first committed to paper at the end of the eighteenth century, it was with a quill. We'd been writing with them for more than a thousand years until they were supplanted by mass produced steel nibs a few short decades later.
Our glamorous goose is sitting on a nest created from - what else - a flying geese unit. And In this month's technique box I will be sharing how to create the goose's elegant beak. This is a technique I'm very fond of and, if it's new to you, I hope it becomes a favourite for you too. Also in this month's parcel are two more Christmas Pear ornaments. Look out next month for some ideas how to use them :-)
Click on the photo to zoom in on the following steps: a) trim down the 2" x 3" background piece; b) mark a placement line with the small TS template; c) place the trimmed piece on the placement line, right sides together and stitch ¼" away; d) press out; e) turn your work to the wrong side to trim it; f) ta-da, you've just made a beak!
This month's technique...
This month we're going to be creating a beak - as you do! - with my favourite placement template technique and I thought some step-by-step photos might be helpful...
PLEASE NOTE: Andrea and I have also included the background fabric for the Lords a-leaping in this month's parcel, so keep it safe until we need it for our month 9 blocks in July.