Need your ideas, PLEASE!

[Mrs.A]

Sometimes the simplest patterns are so challenging to quilt! I am working on a quilt which contains 6 inch blocks that are 4 little rail fence blocks pushed together. Each piece of fabric is 1" wide and 3" long and, for those of you who can't remember what a rail fence is, the strips are arranged in squares of three parallel strips. Dear me, I'm making this sound so complicated but it is SO simple.

It's an important quilt so I am doing custom work in a pretty small scale. I have feathers elsewhere but need to find something for the small rail fence blocks that will knock them down really well.

I tried looking at webshots where there are lots of rail fence quilts but none that show the quilting designs. Besides CC's, can you suggest any ideas for me? Thanks SO much, Nancy

[ffq-lar]

If the rails are arranged in a rotating pattern, do a simple SID down one seam which will butt into the next rail edge--continue across to the edge of the block. If you do this horizontally and vertically, you will have a one inch grid over the entire block. It will look like tiny piecing. And it will add enough texture and interest to the RF blocks and maybe match the density of the feather quilting. And it will counter the curves in the feathers with some geometric stitching.

[ffq-lar]

Another idea--if you like the thought of geometric--crosshatch the whole block using the piecing as a guide.

[Quilting Heidi]

I like Linda's ideas. If you want you can SID the rails and then in the middle one do a tiny line of swirls. If you need all the logs knocked down maybe do a echoed arch in the outside and swirl down the center. Just depends how fancy you want to get with it. You could also do circles to fill one or two of the logs and alternate with something else.