Flying Geese Quilt Pattern

A patchwork unit made of one large triangle, the goose, flanked by two smaller triangles, the sky, that together form a rectangle resembling a bird in flight. Flying Geese units are most often pieced in a series to suggest a flock crossing the quilt top, commonly as borders or as the whole field of a quilt. The pattern is documented in American quilts from roughly 1840 to 1850, and later folklore has connected its name to both Civil War era symbolism and the Underground Railroad, though these connections are debated among quilt historians.