Garden Fence is a free baby quilt pattern made from twelve rail fence blocks. It finishes at 32 1/2 by 42 inches, it is made from two packs of 2 1/2 by 10 inch mini strips, and not one strip is ever cut to width. The eleven page PDF is free to download a little further down.
A rail fence is the block quilters meet first and then walk straight past, because it looks like the easy one. Five strips sewn together, no points to match, nothing to line up. There is nothing in it to prove.
That is the reason to come back to it. Every ounce of the design sits in the arrangement rather than the sewing, which means a beginner can make something that looks considered on the first try.
Garden Fence at a glance
- Finished size. 32 1/2 by 42 inches. A baby quilt, or a good lap quilt for a chair.
- Skill level. Beginner. Straight seams from start to finish, no triangles, no bias, no points to match.
- Block. Rail fence, five rails, 9 1/2 inches finished. Twelve of them, three across and four down.
- Setting. Basket weave. Every block a quarter turn from the ones beside it.
- Precuts. 2 packs of 2 1/2 by 10 inch mini strips. Eighty strips, two of each of forty prints.
- Cutting. None, in width. Two ruler passes per block and four trimmed border runs, and that is all.
- Time. A weekend, comfortably.
Download the free Garden Fence baby quilt pattern
Eleven pages, with the fabric requirements, the sorting, the block, the layout, the border, the binding, a strip plan for all twelve blocks and a photographic key to the forty prints. Free to print, to use and to teach from.
Download the Garden Fence quilt pattern PDF. Everything in it is also written out below, so you can read it here or take the printed sheets to the machine.
What you need
- Mini strips. 2 packs of 40, cut 2 1/2 by 10 inches. Sixty go into the blocks, sixteen into the border, and four are spare.
- Backing. 1 1/2 yards. One width is enough at this size, with no piecing. A single cut of 108 inch wide backing also works.
- Binding. 1/3 yard, cut into four strips 2 1/2 inches across the width of fabric.
- Batting. 40 by 50 inches, which is 4 inches larger than the top on every side.
There is no fabric key in this pattern and no numbered fabrics. Every strip is its own print and none of them has a job another cannot do. What matters is not which print goes where, it is whether a strip is light, middle or dark.
Mini strips are a lightweight cotton, which is what makes them easy to press and forgiving to sew. On a quilt that will be washed as often as a baby quilt is, put a normal weight backing or a flannel behind them. The backing gives the top the body it does not have on its own.
Sort before you sew
This is the one step people skip, and it is the step that decides whether the quilt reads as a weave or as a heap. Spread all eighty strips out and sort them into three piles by how light or dark they are, never by color.
Every block then takes one strip from the light pile at the top, three from the middle, and one from the dark pile at the bottom. Always that order, in every block.
It works because of what happens when the blocks are turned. A dark rail meets a dark rail across the seam and the eye follows the line from one block into the next. That continuous line is the weave. Sew the strips down in whatever order they come out of the pack and you get a pretty quilt with nothing running through it. There is more on this in our guide to sorting scraps for a quilt.
Making a block
Take five strips in the order above. Sew them together along their long edges with a scant quarter inch seam, and press each seam to the darker fabric before you add the next strip.
Press after every seam rather than sewing all five and pressing once. A strip set that is handled a lot before it is pressed bows in the middle, and a bowed set will not trim square. Press to the dark every time. The reason is shadowing rather than nesting: a dark allowance lying behind a light rail shows through from the front, and you only notice once the quilt is finished.
The sewn set measures 10 inches across the strips and 10 1/2 inches down them. Lay the ruler along the top edge, trim a quarter inch away, then turn the set and do the same at the bottom. Nothing comes off the two side edges.
That leaves a block 10 inches square unfinished, which finishes at 9 1/2. The three middle rails finish at 2 inches and the two outer ones at 1 3/4. The difference does not show in the finished quilt, because an outer rail always sits against the plain edge of its neighbor. Make twelve blocks.
Laying out the top
Three blocks across and four down. Turn every other block a quarter turn, so the rails run across in one block and up and down in the next, in a checkerboard.
Lay all twelve out on the floor before you sew a single seam, and take a photograph of them. Turning a block on the carpet takes a second. Ripping one out takes an evening.
Sew the blocks into four rows of three. Press the seams of row one to the left, row two to the right, row three to the left again, so the allowances lock when the rows meet. Inside a block there is nothing to nest, because turning a block puts its seams against the plain edge of the one beside it. The only joins that need matching are the ones between block and block.
The center finishes at 28 1/2 by 38 inches.
The border
Sixteen strips are left over and they make the whole border. A strip goes on at its full width and finishes at 2 inches, because it loses a quarter in the seam to the quilt and the other quarter disappears inside the binding seam.
Measure your own center across the middle before you cut the border runs. The arithmetic here assumes 28 1/2 by 38 inches, and if yours came out a little different it is the border that follows the quilt, not the other way around.
Join four strips end to end with a straight seam pressed open. Four joined strips measure 38 inches finished, which is the length of a side, so the two side borders need no trimming at all. Sew one to each side. Then make two more runs of four strips, trim each to 32 1/2 inches, and sew one across the top and one across the bottom.
If you usually join binding strips on the diagonal, resist the habit here. A diagonal seam across a 2 1/2 inch strip eats about two and a half inches of length, and the border arithmetic above assumes a straight seam that costs half an inch. Straight joins also disappear in a scrappy border, because the eye reads the change of print as the join anyway.
Quilting and binding
Layer, quilt and bind as you like. An all over meander, or straight lines an inch or so apart, both suit this quilt and neither fights the rails.
Bind with four strips cut at 2 1/2 inches across the width of your binding fabric, joined end to end on the diagonal. The diagonal join belongs here and not in the border. A binding seam has to fold over an edge, so the bulk is spread along an inch or so instead of stacking up in one place. A border seam lies flat inside the quilt, where there is nothing to spread. The four spare mini strips will not make a binding, but they make a good label for the back.
A baby quilt is washed more than any other quilt in the house, and a machine stitched binding takes that better than a hand stitched one. If the quilt is a keepsake rather than a working blanket, hand stitching the binding down is the nicer finish, and it is a pleasant evening. Either way, making the binding comes first.
Your finished quilt measures 32 1/2 by 42 inches.
The strip plan and the print key
The pattern PDF carries a strip plan for all twelve blocks, saying which print goes in which rail, and a photographic key to all forty prints grouped into the three piles. You do not have to follow either of them. Sort into the piles, keep the light on top and the dark at the bottom, and any arrangement will work.
Why a rail fence makes an easy baby quilt
Most free baby quilt patterns for beginners are built on simple squares, and squares make a fine first quilt. A rail fence quilt block asks for the same straight seams and gives more back, because turning the blocks does the design work. That makes it a good project to learn value on, since the layout on the floor shows straight away whether the strips were sorted well. There are no triangles to trim, no points to match, and no sashing between the blocks.
The size helps too. At 32 1/2 by 42 inches the quilt is small enough to finish in a weekend, and big enough for a play mat on the floor, a stroller, or a wall hanging in a nursery or a kids' room. That also makes it a good gift for a new baby.
Colors are up to you. Pastels, blues, brights or a mix of different fabrics all work, because the pattern only asks that every strip be sorted by how light or dark it is. Two colorways of the same quilt can look like two different quilts, and both will show the weave.
One note for new parents. Safe to Sleep, the safe sleep campaign of the National Institutes of Health, advises keeping comforters, quilts, pillows and blankets out of a baby's sleep area. Use Garden Fence on the floor, over the stroller or on the wall, and keep it out of the crib at nap time and at night.
Questions about this baby quilt pattern
Is Garden Fence a good first quilt?
Yes. Every seam is straight, each block takes two ruler passes to trim, and nothing is cut to width. The step that takes care is sorting the strips into three piles, and that is done on the table before you sew.
What size is the finished baby quilt?
The quilt finishes at 32 1/2 by 42 inches. Twelve blocks finish at 9 1/2 inches, three across and four down, for a center of 28 1/2 by 38 inches, and the pieced border adds 2 inches on every side.
Is there a bigger free rail fence quilt pattern?
Yes. Railings is a free rail fence quilt pattern from Robert Kaufman that finishes at 56 by 72 inches, built from a single rectangle size of 2 1/2 by 8 1/2 inches.
Before you start
If you are somewhere between your first quilt and your fifth, this is a good one to have in the pile. The cutting is two ruler passes, the sewing is straight lines, and the quilt that comes out the other end looks like it took far more deciding than it did.
More free patterns, baby quilt patterns among them, are collected in our free quilt patterns library, and the free patterns hub sorts them by the kind of quilt you feel like making.
Marbelia Fernandes
The Fabric Hut Co-Founder
P.S. Sort the strips into the three piles before you sew anything at all. It is the step that looks like tidying and is actually the design.
