Overnight Delivery Rail Fence Table Runner {Tutorial}

I ended up with a little pile of extra jelly roll strips as well as a few half strips after making my latest quilt pattern for Moda Bake Shop, Jingle Bell Rock.

The leftovers were definitely enough for a small project so I kept all of my coordinating fabrics together after finishing that quilt. I don't always keep coordinating scraps together, but when it seems like there is enough fabric to make something like placemats, a mini quilt, or even a table runner, I usually tend to keep the fabric together until I decide what I want to do with it.

I had quite a few low volume strips and some medium-to-dark strips so I decided to make rail fence blocks.

A little bit of strip piecing and quilting later, I had this adorable table runner! Here's how I made it:

For the top:
A total of 9 - 2.5" x WOF strips or equivalent scraps
     (I used some full WOF strips and some half WOF strips leftover from the quilt)

For the backing and batting:
A piece of fabric approximately 24" by 54"
     (This gives you a 2-3" overhang on all four sides)
A piece of batting the same size as your backing

For the binding:
4 - 2.5" x WOF strips (or binding width of your choice!)

To make the rail fence blocks, sew your strips together in sets of three and press as desired. Your strip sets should measure 6.5" wide unfinished. Subcut your strip sets into 6.5" long sections.

If you are working from WOF strips, make 4 strip sets, each containing 3 - 2.5" strips. Cut 6 - 6.5" sections from each strip set, making a total of 24 rail fence blocks.

If you are working from scraps, you can choose to strip piece or not -- each block is made up of 3 - 2.5" x 6.5" rectangles if you prefer to cut the small rectangles instead of strip piecing the blocks.

Arrange the blocks so that the orientation of the blocks alternate in a 8 block by 3 block arrangement and sew the top together. Your top should measure approximately 48.5" long and 18.5" across. Layer with batting and backing; quilt as desired and bind.

For the quilting, I quilted it in the same star-and-loops design that I used for the quilt but I scaled down the design slightly. The backing is the same backing as the throw sized quilt and I also used this fabric for the binding (but don't look too closely because I had to piece my binding quite a bit!) The Overnight Delivery line from Sweetwater is just too cute!

I hope you are having a wonderful week! I am home from retreat and will be working on a wrap up post this weekend to share what I was working on!