When I first started quilting (in another millenium), I said that I did not like scrap quilts. I think there were 2 main reasons why I said that:- I did not like all scrap quilts. There is a limit to what I want combined in one quilt.
- I lacked the confidence to manage that many fabrics.
At first I limited myself to quilts in which all the blocks were made of the same fabrics. About midway through the first year, I got bored with that. Now I love scrap quilting, but I control what I combine in one quilt. I call it
Controlled Scrap Quilting. These are the principles I follow:
- Gather fabrics for the quilt and stand back. Include lights, mediums, darks, small, medium, and large prints, geometrics, plaids, dots, etc. in as many colors as you wish. Does the pile of fabric look okay?
- If you can't tell from the pile of fabric, cut 2-3" pieces of each. Do the scraps look okay together?
- Look at the fabrics through a camera lens. Do they look okay?
- If you are not sure of a fabric, take a chance. Make extra blocks so you can leave some out if they don't work when it is time to lay out the top.
- Do the fabrics used in each block look okay together?
- Notice that I am saying okay, not good. The minimum requirement is that they look okay together.
- Lay out the blocks so they look sort of good next to each other. At a minimum, they should not clash.
- Don't worry if a fabric is close to another piece of the same fabric. That happens.
- If all these guidelines are followed, the resulting top is likely to look GREAT.
(I also said I did not like heavily quilted quilts, but that is a topic for a different entry.)
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