Wild Goose Chase quilt block

Four yellow points, a coral center, and a ring of geese flying out into the dark. One of the nine stars in Midnight Stars, and one of the most striking.

Wild Goose Chase is an old block, and a well traveled one. It is one of the patterns in the National Park Service's Quilt Discovery Experience, which is where this version started. The geese are the small triangle units that march out from the center in a ring, and they are what give the block its motion. Nothing else in the Midnight Stars panel moves quite like it.

Here is how it comes together, from printed panel to finished block.

Step 1: Find it on the panel

The kit is a printed panel, not a stack of yardage. Each block has its own labeled area, and each shape inside it is printed at the size it needs to be. There is no yardage to work out, no templates to trace, and no acrylic rulers to buy for the odd angles. You find Wild Goose Chase, and everything for it is already drawn.

Step 2: Cut on the printed line

Rotary cutter, printed line, done. The parallelograms are the pieces that would normally send you looking for a specialty ruler, and here they arrive already drawn at the correct angle. This is the step where the planning would usually live, and on a panel kit it simply is not there.

Step 3: Sew the small units first

Wild Goose Chase is assembled from the inside out. The small units go together first, each one a couple of seams, and only then do they become part of anything bigger. It is a comfortable rhythm to work in: short seams, quick wins, and a growing pile of finished units on the table beside you.

Step 4: Lay the whole block out

Lay the units out in position before you sew any of them together. It is worth doing for accuracy, because the geese all have to point the same way round the ring, and it is worth doing because this is the first time you see the picture. The star arrives here, on the mat, before the machine has touched it.

Step 5: Join the rows

Units become rows, rows become the block. Three seams across and two seams down, and the whole thing closes up. This is straight, traditional piecing throughout, which is exactly what makes a block this graphic achievable in an evening.

Step 6: The finished block

That is one of nine. Each block in Midnight Stars is a different pattern, and they are ordered so that they ask a little more of you as you work through them. By the time you reach the end you have a 24″ square of night sky and nine stars you built one at a time.

About those Y seams

An honest note, because it is the best part of the story. When this block was first drafted and test sewn, it had 12 Y seams in it. A Y seam is the join where three pieces meet at a point rather than along a straight line, and twelve of them in a single block is a lot to ask of anyone's evening.

So it was redrafted. The kit that ships is traditionally pieced with no Y seams at all – straight seams, start to finish. The block still looks like this. It is simply built a different way underneath.

Make this one

Midnight Stars Quilt Kit

Nine different star blocks on a printed panel, finishing at 24″ × 24″ as a wall hanging, with a larger layout in the booklet. Traditionally pieced, no Y seams. Skill level: confident beginner.

Quilt top only – $54.00
Complete kit with backing and batting – $69.00

Printed 100% cotton panel, solid cotton for backing and binding, batting, and printed instructions.

Want to see another of the nine come together? Nine Stars, One Night Sky follows a different block from the same panel, built with the Magic 8 half square triangle method.