It is finally starting to feel like spring in my neck of the woods so I spent a lot of time outside this weekend soaking up some much needed vitamin D. As a result, I spent only a little bit of time in my quilt room.

After spending several months on my Christmas Quilt, I decided that this weekend I wanted to work on a quick and easy quilt top as well as something that reminds me of summer.

I grabbed one of my Jelly Rolls (a selection of pre-cut 2 1/2 inch fabric strips) that has been sitting in my fabric stash and decided to do a Rail Fence quilt. Rail fence quilts are quick and easy. Here is how I started mine.

Going with a red, white and blue theme (can you tell which holiday I have on my brain), I sewed three strips from my jelly roll together, making sure I pressed to the dark sides.

Then I measured the height of the sewn strips. Mine happened to be 6 3/8″. The blocks are all squares, so I cut the strip into 6 3/8″ squares.

This pattern can be arranged in a couple of different ways as seen below.

I decided to go with a zig-zag layout. The important part of making a rail fence quilt is to alternate the direction of the blocks. So if one block has its strips vertical, the next block should be rotated so the strips are horizontal.

It took me about two hours to sew, cut and assemble the blocks. It should only take me another few hours to get everything sewn together. I will be posting the finished product later this week.

Happy Quilting!