quilt club with stacey lee

WEEK 1 – RAIL FENCE QUILT – GETTING STARTED

RAIL FENCE QUILT

A big congratulations to you all for completing Your First Quilt – you are now considered graduates of Quilt Club with Stacey Lee! You have completed a quilt from beginning to end, and understand the fundamentals of making a quilt. From now on it is all about slowly building on your skills and to do this we will move on to the Rail Fence Quilt.

The Rail Fence Quilt is a simple design, yet it is slightly more challenging constructing the quilt top.  

Here’s what I want you to do: Watch my YouTube videos and read the notes, then get started on making our quilt top for your Rail Fence Quilt.

VIDEOS TO WATCH

Week 1 – Part A – Rail Fence Quilt – Preparing Your Fabric

Week 1 – Part B – Rail Fence Quilt – How to Group Your Fabric

Week 1 – Part C – Rail Fence Quilt – Sewing Your Strips Together

TO READ

Week 1 – Rail Fence Quilt – Getting Started (Column Number Cards found here)

Checklist

TOOLS NEEDED

Ruler, self healing mat, rotary cutter (if using fabric off the bolt), iron, ironing board/mat, sewing machine, pins

SUPPLIES NEEDED

Fabric for your quilt top, thread

NOTES
 

You need the following amount of 2½” strips to make your rail fence quilt:  

Lap Quilt – 40 x 2½” strips

Larger Quilt – 80 x 2½” strips

There are two methods to cutting fabric, with the lines on the mat or the lines on the ruler. If you have trouble cutting accurately it doesn’t hurt to use both options when cutting your 2½” strips and I will show you how.

REMEMBER
 

Always lock your rotary cutter whenever you are not using it, it is basically a razor blade on a wheel!

Always cut away from yourself. Keep your fingers away from the edge of the ruler.

PREPARING YOUR OFF THE BOLT FABRIC

Iron your fabric

Cut 2½” strips according to how many different fabrics you have how many you need

Iron out the manufacturers fold in all your strips

PREPARING YOUR JELLY ROLLS

Iron out the manufacturers fold in all your strips

Iron kinked beginnings and ends, and anywhere else that may need it

HOW TO GROUP YOUR FABRIC

The different patterns you can create using the Rail Fence Quilt technique are endless and something you need to think about before you get started. If you do a Pinterest search you will see all the different variations you can achieve

How you group your fabric is entirely up to you and will be heavily determined by the fabric you have chosen to use You need to group your fabrics into groups of four, in the order you would like them to be sewn together

RANDOM PLACEMENT

If you would like the random look you simply need to place your 2½” strips into groups of four, in a way that you are happy with them

However, be careful not to place fabrics that are very dark, very light, very bold, or just stand out for whatever reason in the same blocks of four. Space these out within the different groups of four

ZIG ZAG LOOK

If you would like the zig zag look you need to have your fabrics grouped from lighter to darker shades

It doesn’t matter if the fabrics are different, as long as they are a similar shade and/or pattern

FOLD TOGETHER

In order to not mix up your groupings, carefully fold your fabrics to prepare to sew them together

SEWING YOUR GROUPS OF FABRIC TOGETHER

Taking your first folded group of four 2½” strips, carefully unfold it

We need to alternate the direction of the stitching (top or bottom) to prevent warping

If you might forget which way you have sewn, attach a “Place number holder” on it with the arrow facing down onto your first strip, this is to help you remember which direction you have sewn.

Take the second strip and pin together, sew all the way along

Set your stitches

Finger press the seam up, we will set the seam up for every seam

Press the seam with your iron

Take your next strip and sew from the bottom

Press as described above

Repeat these steps until all four strips are sewn together, remembering to alternate the direction that you sew


COMING UP IN WEEK 2 – CUTTING & ARRANGING OUR BLOCKS

TASK

Cut our blocks into squares

Arrange our blocks for our quilt top

Sew our blocks together

TOOLS NEEDED

Ruler, rotary cutter, self healing mat, sewing machine, iron, ironing board/mat

SUPPLIES NEEDED

Your sewn together groups of 4, thread


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