Foxflower

Sandpat, thank you, I wanted that one because it look a little like chicken wire.

Hey Jami. I will describe what I do. Others probably have other methods...

Usually I start out with a blanket spread on the floor. I take the blocks I'm going to use (I don't know if you are going to use all yours at once or not) and separate by size and set the fillers in a separate pile as well. Then, I arrange the blocks as much into a rectangle or square as they'll go on their own. I add fillers as necessary. I the assess for color, size, and busyness. I like a more orderly look in scrappy quilts and I like my eye to keep moving with out getting confused, overwhelmed, or stuck in an area.

Warm and dark colors draw the eye first. In my second quilt I have Sandpat's beautiful chickie in the middle because it is so bold it centers the quilt in the middle, but would weight it if place on the side. In the first quilt I placed a bold block in the middle again, but had others to spaced around the quilt as well to balance it. There were a lot of bold blocks, so that wasn't to hard in that case. I also arranged small 6" and 3" blocks of similar color together in arrangements to me 9x12, 6x9, and 6x12 sizes. I could then move those around as larger blocks to get color balance. A few of the blocks had pink, lime, and purple, but not many, so I needed place those carefully. Crafty's fox block has all those colors and served to tie them in to the rest of the quilt, you'll notice I place most of those brights next to her fox.

Busyness can really overwhelm me personally, so I was careful to alternate heavily pieced blocks with the larger appliqued blocks. That gives the eye some rest as it moves along. I didn't do it on the 1st quilt, but using a solid color fabric as lattice can really allow the eye to rest as well. You also want something farely neutral I think so it doesn't draw your eye away from the blocks much. Or it could be a color you want to draw out of the quilt more, or something that matches in style such as my using neutral chicken wire as lattice with blocks that had lots of chicken wire in them, not to mention the chickens!

Once I get things in a somewhat pleasing arrangement I walk away from it for a bit, look from another angle, and usually ask someone to look at it who's color or design sense I respect. I may sit down and watch tv for a while glancing down at it from time to time. I switch things around until I'm satisfied. If I have to move it, I pin each block in place on the blanket and roll or fold it up until I'm ready to work on it again, same goes for keeping it ready to put together and add the lattice.

I really think away one arranges it is best describe as BALANCE. Hope this helps Jami. How do the rest of you do it?