n2scraplvr

Fabric Selection

Begin by pulling these fabrics or large enough scraps:

1) fabrics of small, medium, large and extra-large scale
2) small prints that will appear as solids from a distance
3) solid colors. These solids mixed in with prints give much impact to your mini. Use them wherever you need an area impacted with bold color! For example, if you have an area where darks are all congregated, you'll need a solid color to boost that area by creating balance and harmony. In my mini, I used 12 different shades of yellow. I used yellow in every block but one! Solid yellows were used to highllight an area! For all scrappy quilts, you need to use either black, yellow or white to highlight and bring drama. Always use at least one of these colors or all three in your scrap quilts. You should use white or near white to highlight and give the eyes a place to rest from the busyness of all the prints and colors.
4) do repeats of one fabric 2 or 3 times in your quilt or mini. Antique quilts are famous for their repeats of a fabric and the quilters of yesteryear knew the secret of using this. Using the fabrics several times in their quilt was not just done because of their limited fabric choices on hand. They knew the advantages of repeating that same fabric to bring unity and appeal to the quilt!
5) to add interest, use some medium/large scale prints in the corners to liven up a dull block that has small scale prints used for the wedges. Not all the wedges should be big, bright and bold colors. You need to vary the look of the blocks! Sometimes where a fabric needs to be a light one, I may use a medium or dark! This brings mystery to the quilt and makes the blocks look unplanned.
6) use both dull and bright colors. They balance each other out!
7) pull (what I call) some 'oddball' fabrics. These are ones that have varying patterns in the print that may be of a circular, triangular or linear fashion. You might cut some I Spy fabrics into small pieces or large florals into small pieces that would give it graphic appeal. I used an elongated string of blue roses print in the bottom left corner. It's what will set your quilt apart from any other as we all have oddball fabrics! It's how you use those fabrics in your mini/quilt that makes people say, 'how in the world did she do THAT?' Notice in my quilt all those oddball fabrics where you just see a stem or leaf but it makes it appealing and causes the viewer to do a double-take sometimes.
8) the wedge is a perfect size piece to showcase some really large-scale florals or prints. Also experiment with stripes, checks, Batiks or plaids with the fabrics you've chosen for your mini.
9) pull from the scrap bag instead of using yardage. The whole purpose of a scrap quilt is to use up those scraps and you'll always find interesting looking pieces in the scrap bag! I found a red, white and blue feedsack print that livened up my middle right block.