how to make a broken fence block

I always forget all the little short cuts that can make patchwork go more smoothly. I think about strip sets only after I've individually stitched an entire postage stamp style quilt.

So, when it came to making a non-traditional rail fence block I put extra thought into what I could do to make the piecing part go a little more smoothly.

Here's how I make the blocks for my broken fence quilt.

I cut 12 1/2" squares of fabric.  (a total of 36 for my lap quilt)

I want 5 bars in each block so I work with 5 pieces of fabric at a time.

I stack the five pieces on top of each other and make 4 random cuts with my rotary cutter.

Then divide the pieces so that each block had a slice from each fabric.

I stitch the pieces together with a 1/4" seam and press.

After pressing, I trim each block to 10 1/4 " square.

This method gives you 5 blocks at a time, but my quilt is made of 36 blocks.  For the last block you can just make one block with individually cut strips, you can make an extra set of five (use extras on back or in another project), or you can do one set of six.  I will warn you (because I didn't think this all way through when I chose this option) if you do six cuts, your block will be shorter than 10 1/4" .  I simply add an extra strip on those blocks.

For this quilt I cut the bluish blocks vertically and the reddish blocks horizontally.

happy piecing