Twenty eight flowers, every one of them made from rail fence units.
That's Button Box, a free rail fence quilt pattern by Darlene Zimmerman for Robert Kaufman. It finishes at 33 1/2 by 59 inches, and the cover rates it for the confident beginner: someone who has basic block construction down and wants to learn a new trick. If you've made a rail fence before and want to see how far one simple unit can go, this is a good next step. Each flower is four two-strip units turned around a center, laid out on point and framed with a pieced border. The name comes from the last step, which is optional: a button sewn in the middle of every flower. Below you'll find the download, how the flowers are built, three fixes for the cutting instructions and the finishing steps.
Free Rail Fence Quilt Pattern PDF Download
Five pages, free, designed by Darlene Zimmerman and published by Robert Kaufman Fabrics in 2016. It features her Morningside Farm collection.
Pattern: Button Box
Brand: Robert Kaufman Fabrics
Designer: Darlene Zimmerman
Finished size: 33 1/2 x 59 inches
Difficulty: confident beginner, printed on the cover
Block: a 6 inch flower block made of four rail fence units, 28 blocks laid out on point
Technique: strip piecing, on point setting with setting and corner triangles, pieced border
Colors: fourteen prints in red, yellow, blue, green and pink on a white background
Precuts: written for yardage, not for fat quarters, jelly rolls, layer cakes or charm packs
You'll also need: the Companion Angle ruler from EZ Quilting, which the pattern lists for the setting triangles
Download the Button Box pattern PDF
Before you cut the prints, read the section below on the cutting instructions. Followed exactly as written, it can't be cut from an eighth of a yard, and it leaves the border four rectangles short.
Four Rail Fence Units Make One Flower
A rail fence unit is strips of the same width sewn side by side into a square. Our guide to the rail fence quilt block goes through the sizes and the ways to set it. Button Box uses the smallest version there is, two rails.
You sew a 2 by 30 inch white strip to a 2 by 30 inch print strip, which gives you a strip set 3 1/2 inches wide. Cut it into eight 3 1/2 inch squares. Each square is one rail fence unit: half white, half print.
Then the turning does the rest. Two units are sewn into a pair with one turned a quarter turn, and two pairs make the block, which should measure 6 1/2 inches square at that point. The print rails meet around the center and form the flower. Each strip set makes eight units, which is exactly two flowers, so fourteen strip sets give you the 28 blocks.
There's a reason the flowers look like they're floating. The white rail in every unit is Fabric A, the same white print as the setting triangles and the background. Once the blocks are joined, the white halves blend into the background and only the colored crosses stand out.
Setting It on Point
The blocks go in diagonal rows, which is called an on point setting. Turning the blocks 45 degrees leaves gaps along the edges, and setting triangles fill them to bring the quilt back to a rectangle. The pattern cuts fourteen side triangles from two 5 inch strips of Fabric A using the Companion Angle ruler, and four corner triangles from two 6 1/2 inch squares, each cut once on the diagonal.
Side triangles and corner triangles are cut differently, and the reason is the grain. Yvonne explains it in our video on side triangles and corner triangles.
The corner triangles are cut large on purpose. The Quilter's Bible works out the corner square for an on point block by dividing the finished block size by 1.414 and adding 7/8 inch. For a 6 inch block that's about 5 1/8 inches. The pattern cuts 6 1/2 inch squares, so there's extra all around, and that's why Step 6 says the quilt top will be trimmed later to fit the borders.
When you join the rows, the pattern asks you to match and pin the seam intersections and press the row seams in alternating directions.
What We Found in the Cutting Instructions
We check the numbers of every pattern we publish. The blocks add up exactly. Three things in the cutting list don't, and none of them is hard to work around once you know.
An eighth of a yard is 4 1/2 inches. The cutting list asks for two 2 1/2 inch strips from each of Fabrics B to O, then trims each one to 2 inches. Two 2 1/2 inch strips need 5 inches, and thirteen of those fourteen prints are bought as an eighth of a yard. Cut the two strips at 2 inches straight away. They use 4 inches and fit with half an inch to spare.
Leave the second strip full width. The cutting list says to trim both strips from each print to 30 inches. The blocks only need one of them: a strip set gives eight 3 1/2 inch units, which is 28 inches. The second strip of each print goes into the border, and the border steps call those strips 2 inch by width of fabric, not 30 inches. The difference matters. The two border strip sets are cut into 4 inch units, and each unit holds seven rectangles. At 30 inches long, you get seven units from each set, 98 rectangles in all. The borders need 102. At the full 40 inches, you get ten units from each set and 140 rectangles, with plenty to spare.
The corner squares aren't in the list. The side borders end in four 4 inch print squares, and the cutting list doesn't say where they come from. Fabric B is the only print bought as a quarter yard. After its two strips there's 5 inches left, enough for a 4 inch strip, so that's where we'd cut them.
One more number to know. The border rectangles finish at 1 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches. Seventeen across the top come to 25 1/2 inches, and the two side borders add 3 1/2 each, which makes the quilt 32 1/2 inches wide. Thirty four down the side plus the two corner squares make it 58 inches long. The cover says 33 1/2 by 59. Because the center is trimmed to fit whatever length your pieced borders come out, the borders decide the size, so expect to land close to an inch smaller each way if your quarter inch is exact.
The Pieced Border
The border is strip piecing again, on a bigger scale. Sew seven of the 2 inch print strips into one strip set and the other seven into a second one, press the seams all one direction, and cut both into 4 inch units.
The top and bottom borders take seventeen rectangles each, and the sides take thirty four each. Neither number is a multiple of seven, so the pattern tells you that some units will need to be separated with a seam ripper.
Then measure. Trim the quilt top to match the top and bottom borders first and sew them on. Trim the long sides to match the side borders, add a 4 inch print square to each end of both side borders, and sew them on last. HollyAnne Knight's strip piecing tips help keep the seams straight and even.
Finishing, and the Buttons
For the backing, the pattern asks for 1 3/4 yards. That's one piece about 63 inches long and 40 inches wide, with no seam, which leaves about 3 inches spare on each side and 2 inches at each end. The Quilter's Bible says backing should be at least 2 inches bigger than the top, so that's enough if you quilt it yourself. If you're sending it to a longarm quilter, the book says 4 to 6 inches bigger all around is usually preferred, so check with them and buy a little more.
The pattern cuts five 2 1/2 inch strips for the binding. Joined with diagonal seams, they give you about 190 inches. The quilt measures about 185 inches around at its stated size, and Yvonne adds 20 inches to that measurement for turning the corners, as she shows in our straight binding tutorial. That's 205, so cut six strips instead. The half yard is 18 inches, room for seven.
One step here is worth noticing. Before binding, hand baste a scant 1/4 inch from the edge to hold the three layers together. Then sew on a double binding, miter the corners and hand stitch it down on the back.
The buttons come last, one in the center of each flower. The pattern suggests white buttons on the red flowers so they show up. If the quilt is going in a crib, leave them off.
Fabrics and Palette That Suit This Pattern
The pattern uses fourteen prints from Morningside Farm, the collection it was written for in 2016, which may no longer be on sale. Each print only needs to give you two 2 inch strips across the width, so it's a good use for prints you already have.
What the design needs is contrast between each print and the background. The flowers only work because the white rails disappear into the white background, so whatever fabric you use for Fabric A, choose prints that read clearly darker than it. If you're not sure how light or dark a fabric is, our guide on fabric value, color and texture explains why value does more of the work than color.
The border uses the same fourteen prints, so it ties back to the flowers without any new fabric.
If You Like This One
For more rail fence, Railings uses the block across a 56 by 72 inch quilt, and Garden Fence is a 32 by 42 inch baby quilt. Darlene Zimmerman also designed Tutti Frutti, a fat quarter friendly quilt in half square triangles.
There are more in our free quilt patterns.
P.S. Make one flower first and measure it before you cut the rest. If it isn't 6 1/2 inches square, fix your seam now, while it's one block and not twenty eight.
