Louisa Quilts: Rail Fence quilt

Recently I pulled out my collection of fabrics from Africa. I had some yardage pieces, plus the scraps that I blogged about here. (Was that really three years ago?!)
A few of the bits have found their way into small projects such as the International Birds in this post. But there was still a good selection and it felt like the time had come to actually USE some of these precious pieces.

After some experimenting with Electric Quilt software and a few trial blocks I decided that this 8” block would make best use of my fabrics. Larger pieces of fabric would be featured in the rail pieces, and smaller pieces could be used in the triangles. Solid black was used for the alternating triangles and for the small accent strip. I found a gorgeous piece of Moda fabric for the constant fabric and borders.

With that plan in mind I got to work and made half a dozen blocks. I put them up on the wall – and thought, Oh no! The word “cacophony” came to mind -- all those exuberant prints seemed to fight with one another. I left them on the wall and went away for a while. When I came back they seemed much happier together. I made more, then enough for an entire quilt top. Each time I put blocks up on the wall I wondered just what I was thinking when I planned this. Each time I took another look and realized it DID work!
I added borders of the constant fabric, then a narrow inset border using more of the African prints. I used some of the smallest pieces in this 1” border, not wanting to waste anything.

The quilt is backed with another African fabric that I had set aside thinking it might some day become a garment. I think the quilt is much happier wearing those flowers than I would ever be!

Quilting was done with more-or-less straight, pretty close to parallel lines, about 1” (give or take a little) apart.
Every time I try to take a picture of this quilt the wind is blowing. Those fabrics just want to dance!