I personally don't think of ToTs as solids only because even if you step back, you can still see movement in the fabric if you know what I mean. I will often use ToTs in place of solids, like a large applique quilt I am working on has different sized blocks, and I am using a variety of ToTs white and creams as the background fabrics. I could use one solid, but I wanted a hint of movement behind the appliques, and using a variety of colors anchors the blocks instead of making it look like the appliques are floating there. I could have gone with ToTs for Wall-E, but it would have been hard to find 5 that are different shades and read as solids when you step away, so I just went with Kona cotton solids this time.
I am getting better at combining fabrics too. I have used a large scale print before without heeding what color was in the background and had that background color match up with another piece of my block, so when you step away it blended and created a weird shape. LOL Hard to explain, but you really do have to step back and look at everything from afar or things can get a bit crazy! I envy people who can do this with ease.
So far as the large scale printing, I am actually going to use my freezer method of paper piecing, so it's actually not as complicated as I made it seem. LOL. The hardest part is trying to decide if I should cut 8.5 x 11 pieces off my roll of freezer paper or buy the 8.5 x 11 sheets of paper. EQ7 allows me to print the line drawing out and it will automatically split it on 8.5x11 sheets, so I will just print it on 12 sheets and then iron the freezer paper to itself on the edges to create my full scale pattern, then I will cut along certain pattern lines to make my individual sections, it's actually going to be quite simple. I cannot even begin to imagine how I would do it if I regular paper pieced!! If you are curious about how my freezer paper method works for paper piecing, you can go to my blog (link in signature) and click on "PP W/Freezer Paper " under Tutorials on the right sidebar.
Cheers!
Rachel