Honey

That is exactly what I do. I cut my scraps into 5" squares and whatever I grab goes next in the row. It's funny, but they all seem to work well together. These are quilts that I tie for "puffy quilts" (as one GS said). They are just old fashioned comfort quilts, nice and cheery. I made one for one of my Godsons when he went to collage. It is now 27 years old and they still use it. It's getting pretty threadbare, but their kids still love it. They call it the sick quilt. Whenever anyone gets sick, they want that quilt. I also put 2 together, sew diagonally and then cut and I have HST. Every quilt doesn't necessarily have to have a spacifid pattern to be beautiful and loved. Also, the ones that I have enough of I sew into 9 patches to put together. Some are sashed, some not. I just finished my 4th one since 1/1. Also, with scrappys you don't need a pattern. With 5" squares 18 rows across and 20 down make a great quilt for a full sized bed. (actually it's a little big, but that's the way I like them. They also make very colorful baby quilts. I made one for each of my kids and they loved them.

Teacup

I haven't done any of her patterns yet, but I'm inspired by Bonnie Hunter's scrap quilts.
www.quiltville.com

littlehud

Same here. I need order and a pattern.

raptureready

When I first started I couldn't even put two different prints in the same block. It HAD to be 1 solid and 1 print. Sure glad I got over that but it was a struggle. Try just making a doll quilt first. Since dolls can't really see, it won't matter what it looks like. Right? Then once you see how pretty the doll quilt is you can work up to bigger quilts.

ctack2

It's funny that this topic came up today. I am a new new newbie...haven't got the first piece cut for my first quilt yet. I made a couple baby quilts, but that was like 30 years ago!
Last night while I was looking at patterns, I kept thinking to myself that while they are pretty, some beautiful ones out there, they just look like pieces of art to me. I'd see a pattern that I thought was nice, but kept thinking "that doesn't look cozy and comfortable like Mamaw's quilts always did" or "nice, but nothing as homey as Granny used to make". Then it hit me! The quilts that they made decades ago were all 'scrappy quilts', made from cloth left over from making clothes, or old clothes cut apart. I can't imagine either of them EVER went into a store with the intention of buying material for a quilt. Those were the quilts that you could spend hours looking at - looking for scraps from clothes you remembered someone wearing.....nothing says love (to me) more than a scrappy quilt made by my grandmother.
Carol B

raptureready

A lot of your older quilts didn't have borders either. They just had blocks from edge to edge. Quite a few of my mom's had multiple fabrics in the bindings too. I just posted a pix of one of mom's quilts under Some of my Ladies In Waiting.

dkabasketlady

I agree with scissorqueen, anything goes, use the paper bag method!!! Once you let yourself goooooooo then it'll be fine!! Have fun!

EllaBud

I agree. Just grab and go. Don't think on this one. The crazier, the better. When you complete it, it will be the best experience you will ever have (because it frees the mind).

Lilaciris

I too was overwhelmed with the decisions on doing a scrappy quilt.

I decided to do my blocks in the same color family.

I made tubes of strips, sliced off a strip, opened it up and added it to another strip from the same tube, but I moved it over by one section. The result was a block portion that looked like it would fit into a trip around the world quilt.

I have purples, blues, greens, reds, pinks, burgandies, blacks, browns, and yellows. I sewed them from dark to light.

JenniePenny

I decided to do my blocks in the same color family.

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At one point, I had tons and tons of blue fabric so I made that into a scrap quilt. I used a white sashing and one yellow as the center of each block.
I am thinking of doing the same thing with pink now.