Flying Geese Calculator
Type the size, get the squares to cut for no-waste four at a time and for stitch and flip, how many pieces that is, and how much fabric. Then watch each method happen, step by step.
Type the width of one goose (the height is always half) and pick Finished or Unfinished to match your pattern. Add how many geese you need and every card below fills in the cut sizes, the piece counts for both fabrics, and the yardage. Leave Cut a little big on. Then pick a method and follow its pictures. It updates as you type.
What a flying goose actually is
A finished goose is a rectangle exactly twice as wide as it is tall. Inside it are three triangles: one big one (the goose, or body) pointing up with its base along the bottom, and two small ones (the sky, or wings) in the top corners. Every method on this page is just a different way to make one big triangle and two small ones with seam allowances on them.
So four geese always cost the same fabric: one big square and four small squares. Cut triangles cuts them up first and sews eight bias seams. No-waste sews first and cuts second, four seams, nothing stretched. Stitch and flip skips the big square entirely, cuts a rectangle, and buys the simplicity with four little waste triangles per goose.
Questions people ask
Where do 1¼″ and ⅞″ come from?
The goose triangle is a quarter of a square cut on both diagonals, and a quarter-square triangle needs its square to be the finished width + 1¼″ (two ¼″ seams, each crossing a diagonal, so ¼″ × √2 twice, plus the ½″ the straight edges need; it rounds to 1¼″). The sky triangle is half of a square cut once, which is the half-square rule you already use for HSTs: height + ⅞″. Same rules, different triangles.
Why are the small squares overlapping in the middle? Did I cut them wrong?
No. Two H + ⅞″ squares placed on opposite corners of a W + 1¼″ square overlap by ½″ along the diagonal, and that overlap is the seam allowance for the second round of stitching. If they didn’t overlap, the points would come out clipped.
Which side of the line do I sew on for stitch and flip?
On the line, or a thread’s width toward the corner you’re about to cut off. The fold takes up a hair of fabric, so sewing a thread toward the waste side makes the flipped triangle land exactly on the edge. Sewing toward the middle makes the goose come up short. It’s the one thing that makes people’s stitch-and-flip geese wonky, and it’s why cutting oversize and trimming is such a relief.
What about directional fabric?
No-waste cuts the big square into four triangles pointing four different ways, so a stripe or a one-way print on the goose ends up running sideways on two of them. Stitch and flip keeps the rectangle whole, so the print stays upright. If the print is on the sky, either method is fine; sky triangles are small enough that nobody notices.
How do I trim them to size without a special ruler?
Put the unit point-up under a square ruler. Find the middle of the finished width (half of it; for a 4″ × 2″ goose that’s 2″), put that ruler line on the point seam, and put the ¼″ line ¼″ above the point. Trim the top and one side. Turn it, line the cut edges up on the trim-to size, trim the other two. A Bloc Loc or Wing Clipper does the same thing faster if you make a lot of them.
Is the math the same as in TideStitch?
Yes. The app’s cut list uses the same no-waste squares (one W + 1¼″, four H + ⅞″ at a ¼″ seam, or W + 1½″ and H + 1″ when you cut oversize), generalized to whatever seam allowance you set. This page assumes ¼″.