Quilting fence rails
 

Hi! I'm pretty new to quilting. I'm working on my 4th quilt, first time doing fence rails. Mine has 5 inch blocks. I'm looking on advice on to quilt only at the 5 inch blocks or every inch. Also my batting recommends quilting up to 4 inches. Thanks for your input. Kelley

for easy quilting, I very often use the serpentine stitch on my machine... I widen and lengthen it.

1. You could do simple Stitch in the Ditch.
2. You could do a straight line stitch 1/4" away from the ditch. As long as you do this in all directions, the seams will be well supported.
3. You could use the serpentine stitch (like QuiltNan suggested). I have done that on one of mine before.
4. You could use a different fancy stitch.
5. You could do a basic meander all over the quilt.

Here's an example of quilting diagonal lines both ways through a rail fence:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/94646029639965354/

Here's an example of quilting diagonal lines one way through a rail fence:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/436356651368247677/

Here's an interesting examples of using diagonal lines both ways in varying distances from each other:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/143341200617036770/

For straight lines like the above, I would use a walking foot (assuming you are quilting on a domestic machine).

An allover meander or an allover pantograph design would work well too. I find that loops are the easiest for me to do on a frame setup; probably very easy on a sitdown too. Here is an example of allover loops:
http://quiltingdigest.com/this-rail-...-of-fresh-air/

I tend to like using a diagonal line when using the rail quilt blocks. I feel it gives good structure to the smaller strips. I like the linear looks together and then I use some form of wavy quilting in the borders.

Hi Kelley! Welcome to the board!

When batting recommends quilting every 4 inches, that it the maximum spacing you should allow between your quilting lines. Any less will allow the batting to shift too much, and could lead to deterioration over time.

I would probably do diagonal lines like Prism's link. If you go up the diagonal of every block, your quilting lines will be about 3-3.5" apart, which meets your batting requirements. I also find the diagonals visually interesting, and easier than staying neatly in the ditch.

Please post a picture when you're done, or even just of the top - I think everyone here likes pictures!

Welcome to the board. I mainly do FMQ, large meander, seems to go much faster and easier for me than any straight line quilting

Prism99 - Thank you for the links. I have saved them for the future!

I just finished a fence rail quilt for my GD. Did a all over meander on this one because of the layout she chose.[ATTACH=CONFIG]574372[/ATTACH]