My cousin discovered her love for patchwork and quilting a few months ago so I offered to make a traditional sampler with her to show her some of the tricks of the trade.
As I had accumulated some quite a few a lot of black-and-white fabrics I decided to sew my sampler blocks in black and white envisioning a very elegant and monochrome quilttop. Well monochrome it is but not elegant but really boring. So what’s a quilter got to do? I put the blocks aside aka buried them in a drawer beyond some other ufos. But I couldn’t get them out of my mind.
And then inspiration struck. Well to be honest it was Pinterest where I marvelled over some beautiful appliqué quilts. Why not take the blocks and appliqué some flowers on each block. I really loved the idea and the first blocks turned out great.
My cousin’s quilt is already finished and I’m really proud of her and her work (see picture on the left).
But mine will be totally different. It will be a combination of sewing and applique.
Would you like to join me on my journey? If yes – here’s the deal. For the next 12 months I will post the pattern of the block on the first weekend of the month and the pattern for the applique´on the third weekend of the month. This should give you enough time to finish each block by the end of the month. I would love to see your blocks either in the comment section on the blog or on my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Quiltartnews/
A few things first:
* This is a beginners quilt. The blocks are really easy at the beginning, getting more complicated towards the end.
* The sewn blocks will be 12 x 12 inches (+ seam allowance).
* Use your scraps. Most of my black-and-white fabrics were approx. 12“ square and I made all the blocks out of them.
* Think a little bit about colors before you start. You might want to sew the blocks in neutral colors and choose the colors of the rainbow for your appliqué (as I am) or you choose one color family for the blocks (i.e. blue ) and do all the appliqué in one or two color families (i.e. red and green).
Enough of the theory – here is the first block
BOM 1 – Sewing the Rail Fence Block
Cut 4 rectangles 6 ½ x 2 ½ inches out of 3 different fabrics. These measurements already include a seam allowance of ¼“.
Sew 3 different strips together along the long side. Make 4 of these small blocks, all with the same sequence of the fabric.
Sew 2 of these small blocks together and join the two halves to finish the block.
When sewing the last 
seam make sure that the seam allowances between the small blocks lie in different directions. Push them together, pin, sew and you get a perfect crossing.
So far for today. In 2 weeks you will get the appliqué pattern for the block.
I have put a pinboard with Rail Fence Quilts on Pinterest so that you can see how quilts made of these blocks will look like.
Btw: If you make a whole quilt with these blocks you would rather cut stripes across the whole fabric, sew them together and then cut them into the small blocks.
Have fun choosing your fabrics and sewing the first block. See you next week.