Sunday, October 30, 2011

Bloggers' Quilt Festival 2011: The Mod Rail Fence



Hi there to the people dropping by from the Quilt Festival!

I've never done this before, so bear with me if it's not in the 'proper' style for this kind of post.

The Modern Rail Fence
(Yes, I'm terrible at names.)


I bought the fabric for the Modern Rail Fence quilt back in 2000 when I was just getting into quilting. They were bolt ends and dead cheap. At the time, I imagined making a double irish chain with it, only to later discover that there wasn't enough fabric for the queen-sized quilt I wanted.

So it went into the stash.

rail fence - fabric detail

It went into the stash for ten years.

I pulled it out on occasion, admired it, contemplated it, but never knew what to do with it, until the day I realised that a traditional block, such as the simple Rail Fence could be put together with a modern twist.

Three fabrics, a lot of strip-cutting and piecing, and several layouts later, one finished quilt top!
rail fence - finished top (flat)

Six months later and it's back from the quilters!
Modern Rail Fence

I really like this design, even though I wasn't convinced the effect was what I wanted to achieve at first. But I think it worked pretty well, and would be a great quilt to do again - either with three solids, or possibly with rainbow-coloured strips.

It was a great learning experience for me in terms of flexibility with design. Before this quilt, I'd been fairly rigid in my choices of colours and patterns for quilts. When I made the Mod Rail Fence, it encouraged me to step outside the box a little: use the same design, but switch up the colours and pattern. Rather than doing the 'triple rails' of the traditional rail fence, why not attempt something a little beyond my comfort zone?

Modern Rail Fence - finished!

Anyway, thank you to Amy for hosting the Bloggers' Quilt Festival (that apostrophe means it belongs to all of us, right? "The quilt festival of all bloggers" not "the quilt festival of the blogger.") and thanks for dropping by! Go look at some of the other quilters' works!

21 comments:

  1. that's brilliant - you've really updated the look of this block - outstanding!!

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  2. Oh that's stunning! It's hard to believe it's a rail fence. Very cool! Thanks for sharing it.

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  3. I love it!! So unique...I would love to do one like that sometime...very nice

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  4. Wonderful! Simply wonderful!
    Graphic and colorful!

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  5. Marvelously lovely easy modern quilt. I really like it.

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  6. Wow - this is amazing. I love it when you can make the traditional look as modern as this. This is one of my favourites so far. Really beautiful.

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  7. An awesome quilt! Love it! 8-)

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  8. It is a great quilt. I love how you designed it.

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  9. Fun quilt, I like how you modernized the layout - and you're totally right it can look great in solids or a bunch of different prints. Thanks for sharing! =)

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  10. Perfect, really nice! Love the abstract look you created here.

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  11. I absolutely love LOVE this design. Very mod and very cool. Thanks for sharing, and for the apostrophe love. :)

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  12. Incredible interpretation of such a traditional block!

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  13. I LOVE this quilt! Very, very cool - one of my faves.

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  14. that is a wonderful quilt!! i just love the way the colors move around in there--really fun. thanks for sharing and have a great day

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  15. What a great quilt! You have given a really modern look to this good old standby pattern.

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  16. great quilt - thanks for sharing!

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  17. I think your quilt is brilliant.

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I try to answer every comment made, but if I forget to respond to you, I sincerely apologise! Thanks so much for coming by and commenting!