Happy 150th Birthday, Canada! Everything around us has been branded Canada 150 for months: coffee mugs, jerseys, soap, even granola bars. And we have finally arrived at July 1 of this sesquicentennial year. I will be celebrating at the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, but for you lovely folks – a 150th birthday gift in the form of a pattern.

I had some leftover geese floating around from making samples of my Color Flocks pattern, and I was fooling around one early morning. This Canada Geese Flag came up and had to be made immediately!  It reminds me a bit of the classic CBC logo, subject of a recent Kickstarter Campaign, which made it all the more on theme.

The Canadian flag was designed by George Stanley in 1964 and became the official flag on Canada on February 15, 1965. It’s ratio of 1:2:1 of red to white to red makes my abstract interpretation of the flag somewhat recognizable.

I wish I had used a wider range of reds so you could actually tell that there are three different shades. I think the lightest should be verging on pink. This flag can be put together in about two hours, so if you’ve got a gap between your morning parade and afternoon BBQ, you could totally pull this off on July 1.

CANADA GEESE FLAG (#canadageeseflag)
12″ x 18″ finished, or 12 1/2″ x 18 1/2″ unfinished.
Maple leaf block only: 12″ x 12″ finished, or 12 1/2″ x 12 1//2″ unfinished.

Fabric Requirements:

  • GEESE
    • (16) 2 5/8″ squares, white
    • (1) 4 1/2″ square, light red
    • (2) 4 1/2″ squares, medium red
    • (1) 4 1/2″ square, dark red
  • BACKGROUND
    • (5) 3 1/2″ squares, white
    • (4) 2″ x 5″, white
  • SIDE BARS
    • (2) 6 1/2″ x 12 1/2″, medium red

  1. Using the 16 small white square and the 4 red squares, as pictured above, use the No-Waste Method of making flying geese to produce 16 geese.
  2. Join 3 different shades of geese from darkest to lightest, making 4 rows (below). Press toward the red. You will have 4 leftover medium red geese.

  1. Join the remaining four geese to the white 3 1/2″ squares.
  2. Press toward the goose. This is counterintuitive but will make for nesting seams later on.

  1. Arrange these units as pictured below, and join the 2″ x 5″ rectangles to make 4 square blocks.
  2. Again, press toward the goose.

  1. Lay out the square blocks with the flying geese. The remaining 3 1/2″ white square will be at the centre. Assemble in three rows.
  2. For all three rows, press away from the sets of three red geese.

  1. Join the three rows, pressing again away from the sets of three red geese.

  1. Add the red rectangles to either side of the maple leaf, making sure that the “stem” is pointing down.
  2. Finish as desired.

I am grateful every day that I am a citizen of this country. Happy Canada Day!