No Waste Flying Geese Blocks Formula

I finished up my March blocks and I'll be honest, it was WAY more of a struggle than it should have been. We were asked to make 12" Sawtooth Star blocks - easy right?
I would have said yes before I decided to use the no waste method of making the flying geese blocks, which I had used before and loved but this time made me want to cry.

It was really a simple mistake and I wanted to share it with you in case anyone has the same math impaired brain that I do, perhaps I can save you some struggle! 

So I was using this formula from Patch Pieces for figuring out the sizes I needed for my flying geese construction. I looked at the sizes for all the traditional pieces and thought it seemed like it would be a snap to convert to no waste - I labeled the sizes in the photo above of the individual pieces before the block was assembled.
The traditional FG units were each made with one 6.5" rectangle and two 3.5" squares.

 This is the block with all pieces sewn together 12" finished/12.5" unfinished.
So where was my problem?

 I was using the measurements from the first photo in the formula, which clearly calls for the FINISHED sizes. Somehow my brain felt like the flying geese units in the first photo were "finished" because I had constructed (finished) that portion.
But that was wrong. 

Just because that one building block of the entire block was indeed finished the overall block was not.
It seems so obvious now but I promise it had me near tears this week.
My husband was kind enough to look at my quilty dilemma with an objective eye and he pointed out that the FINISHED size of the flying geese units are actually 6"x3".
Doh.

So if you are doing the math on your own to come up with the correct cutting sizes for no-waste flying geese make sure you project all the way to the truly finished size of the whole block and use THAT in your formula.

Formula for no waste flying geese:

Fabric A: (rectangle part of FG unit) FINISHED HEIGHT of unit + 1.25"
cut one square

Fabric B: (star points of FG unit) FINISHED HEIGHT of unit + .875"
cut 4 squares

I know there are loads of good tutorials out there for no-waste flying geese blocks - I used and really liked this one from Patch Pieces.

And voila! My three finished Sawtooth Stars - two I love and one that looks a lot like a "squint your eyes" and find the hidden picture game.
Thanks for stopping by!