Years ago I took a day course with the famous Ricky Tims in when he visited the UK. The first thing he made us do was roughly cut/tear 2" strips put them in a bag. He then gave us a strip of calico 6"x18". We then had to flip and sew strips to the calico whatever came out of the bag. When finished the strips were placed on a design wall. There was 18 students in the class all working in different colours(brights,pastels,florals etc) When they were all finished he placed black sashing between the strips and the effect was stunning! Never had a problem with fabrics since!! As Ricky says"anything goes"!!!!!

Years ago I took a day course with the famous Ricky Tims in when he visited the UK. The first thing he made us do was roughly cut/tear 2" strips put them in a bag. He then gave us a strip of calico 6"x18". We then had to flip and sew strips to the calico whatever came out of the bag. When finished the strips were placed on a design wall. There was 18 students in the class all working in different colours(brights,pastels,florals etc) When they were all finished he placed black sashing between the strips and the effect was stunning! Never had a problem with fabrics since!! As Ricky says"anything goes"!!!!! Just look at his quilts for inspiration! :thumbup:

Randoms hard for me also. :)

Wish I could keep posting pictures of these - 2 quilts, same fabrics, different patterns - but they are for GD's and I don't want them to see.

Can always relay on you chaps! Thanks!

I'm trying it now. Most of my colors are pastel, and most are blendingwell, so far!! A few times I tossed one back because it was too close in background color( white) but I'm sticking to it and we will see.

Its hard to start a random and not want to put it into some kind of order. One of the problems is you are looking only at one block/square.... not the whole quilt ... it really all does come together. Random quilts make the eye travel across the many fabrics. TRY not to make a decision , bases on one square . I once saw a Kaffe Fasset quilt that had over 300 fabrics, none of which I ever would have purchased... done in a random or scrappy manner .... together .... it was stunning.

I have a hard time also so I haven't done a true scrappy except for the siggy swap I just got together last week. There was enough white to keep me from going bananas.
I'll really do dark, medium and plenty of light when I do one the next time.

I tried it with my DD's tumbler quilt. I did kind of okay. Since it was all 1930's fabrics, they all went together.

show us todays update. . .

My hubby tells me when he sees me playing with randoms, your take off sucks but the landing is fine. He says sometimes it looks like a bad start and he is proud of what comes out at the finish. LOL. Maybe this will work for you. I love randoms. And I like Ricky Timms ideas. He has some samples of these usually at the Houston quitl show so those of you going, check it out.