Rainbow Railfence, December 2020
Rainbow Railfence, designed, pieced, and quilted by VA, December 2020, 64"x 81" (1.62m x 2.05m).
I originally designed this quilt in December 2014 to take to university with me the following September. I thought a quilt that I had made myself would be a great addition to my residence room; a way I could personalize my space while also telling my roommates a little about myself. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to finish it before I graduated, and the Rainbow Railfence never made its way to my residence.
This pattern is my adaptation of the traditional rail fence block. I used black fabric at both ends of my strip units to create a woven illusion, and to help the rainbow colours stand out. While drafting the pattern, I planned the block placement by colouring random squares of grid paper in the four colours of my strip units. If you are interests in making your own Rainbow Railfence, instructions can be found here.
I pieced my Rainbow Railfence quilt using remnants collected from my Mother's and Grandma's fabric stashes. Some remnants were large pieces that remained after making play clothes during my childhood, while others were smaller pieces left over from quilts. The wide range of sizes meant I couldn't strip piece my blocks, so each was pieced individually. I finished piecing the quilt centre in the spring of 2015.
During the summer of 2016, my Grandma helped me measure the quilt centre and calculate the amount of fabric needed for the borders, which I attached the following fall. We agreed that the yellow blocks stood out the most from my quilt top, so I used a narrow yellow border to pull the whole quilt together. The wide black border acts as a barrier and a resting place between the busy quilt top and the room surrounding it.
With the borders attached, my Grandma once again helped me to measure my quilt and calculate how much backing and binding fabric I would need. I wanted a backing fabric that featured all the colours on the quilt top, but I wasn't happy with the patterns that were available. Instead, I chose a green tone-on-tone fabric.
I started quilting the Rainbow Railfence in the fall of 2019, after graduating from university. I used a very dark grey, almost black thread to give my quilt a graphic, illustrative quality. I quilted a diamond shape with 1" hatching to imitate the piecing on the quilt top. Initially I used dot-to-dot quilting, but I realized that the points I was trying to connect were too far apart and were causing my quilting to wobble and my spacing to be uneven. Marking my lines with chalk helped a lot with both problems, and the chalk marks brushed off after a few days. I really like how the quilting turned out, despite the wobbly lines. I also learned a lot about inefficient quilting and burying threads, I will definitely be considering this while quilting my next project.