Color and Scrappy Quilting with a Free Pattern

The main reason I love scrappy quilting is because I can get crazy with the colors.

There are no rules.
There are no perfect lines.
Scrappy can be what ever you want it to be.

We are fortunate around here to have an expert scrappy quilter - Carol!  She made the quilt that you see up to the top of this blog. 

Carol mainly uses patterns that call for small pieces or pieces smaller scraps to make a larger piece.

Her biggest piece of advice about color with scraps - use bag - ziplock or other clear bag/bin to store scraps by colors - it takes the stress out of going through a large pile when just starting a quilt.  She puts them in Black/Gray (she does not have a lot of gray), White/Cream, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple. 

When she decides on a new project, the color is chosen and those bags come out.  Then, she goes through and chooses the shades she likes and whittles those down, putting the ones that did not make the cut back in the bag.

Then, once all the pieces are chosen, Carol begins cutting and sewing the blocks - if one piece does not work, it goes in a small bin until the project is over (just in case!)

I like to take it one step further, in regards to color.  Once you have laid out your quilt, and I recommend laying it out before sewing, take a picture of it.  Click on edit for your picture and change the color to black and white.  This really shows you the shade of the fabrics and whether they are balanced.  The picture below shows how these are much more similar than they appear.  But the shade is enough off set these for 1/2 square triangles.

 
This process is easier to see in a full quilt. Here is a layout of a Tshirt Quilt - I want to make sure the dark and lights are fairly evenly spaced so the eye can move around and not just go to one spot.  That is what we are looking for.

I always take this step before I sew the pieces together, it only takes a minute or two and really shows you any dark or light spots.

Although there are some darker areas, the light areas are dispersed enough to balance this quilt.

This type of shading work is better when you are working with half square, half triangle and other dark/light combinations that don't require a pattern per say.

A fun pattern that utilizes the lights and darks in this fun X's and O's Table Runner using half square triangles.  A free pattern from Art Gallery Fabrics.