March challenge results: exploding rail fence

In February, Terry showed us how to make the exploding rail fence block. She challenged everyone to try it and to bring samples to the March meeting to show. This block proved to be very versatile with many looks depending on how many rails and the size of strips in the rails. The placement of colors in the block could also completely change the look and pattern as well as how the finished blocks are turned and arranged.

Donna made her rail  pieces completely scrappy and random and varied the width of rails. 

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Ilene used five strips for each 5-inch square and used 1 1/2 inch strips of fabric. She used a white strip in the center of each rail section and two scrappy strips for the outside rails.

Leann's rail blocks had four 2 1/2 inch strips of fabric with pink always placed on the outside.

The small blocks from Des had three strips with red in the middle and blue on the outsides. The large blocks are made with five strips (2 1/2 inches) with white in the center and dark strips on the outside.

Julie used four strips of different color fabrics in her blocks. The strips are always placed in the same order (yellow, green, white, blue). She arranged the blocks to have opposite colors of "hearts" in the center. When you stand back from this quilt top, the yellow and blue look like circles. 

Heidi's blocks are made from four strips of varying widths and in random order, but she used the same fabrics in each block for a controlled scrappy feel.

Tiffany chose to have just three rails with white always in the middle and two different teal and brown strips on the outside.

Chris is using a jelly roll and sewing four strips together to form her blocks. She alternated orange and teal strips.

Darlene also used four strips that were sewn in the same order (yellow, green, multi, blue) but she ended up with two different blocks because of how she arranged the cut triangles pieces.

Linda used 1 1/2 inch strips and always placed white in the middle with two different prints next and two different solid strips on the outside. 

Linda discovered she could arrange blocks so the solid colors made long strips and created a lattice pattern that resembles sashing.

Rosemary's blocks resulted in different patterns completely. She used four strips in the pink set, but instead of turning the rail pieces at angles to sew them together, she matched the two squares so the strips went the same direction and the same-color strips were matched.

She used five strips for the black and red set and made the rail pieces run the same direction but the color strips are opposite each other. 

This was definitely a fun challange! Thanks Terry. We were amazed at the variety from one block!