Originally Posted by
sewplease
Please go to
www.Quiltville.com and read about Bonnie Hunter' s scrap user system and look at her quilts. She also has MANY free patterns and a blog which is lots of fun. She uses lots of scraps, including squares. Also, if you like the colors, use the batiks - the more variety, the better the scrappy quilt! :-)
I agree with sewplease.
I see no problem with using individual squares. In fact, I enjoy the process of sewing the squares and rectangles and prefer that method. The "quicky" strip set methods just don't do it for me. I feel like I don't get enough variety in my scrap fabrics. By accident I once made a Burgoyne Surround using individually cut pieces rather than strip sets and found it to be a lot of fun to do the piecing.
IMHO there is no problem in mixing different qualities of fabric. To me, that is what scrappy is all about. If the fabric is
very thin or a
very loose weave I might consider skipping using it just so that I don't have a worn area after just a few washes. Otherwise, the more fabrics the merrier and the more variety the better.
All that being said, this is YOUR quilt and you get to do what you want. I would go ahead and add in the batiks where their color fits in and I wouldn't worry too much about pre-washed and non-pre-washed fabrics. Personally, I do pre-wash all of my fabrics to ensure I don't have shrinkage issues. But, in this case I wouldn't hesitate to use what you have.