Here is what I did. I laid out my fabrics so I knew what color when next to each other, then cut out 8.5" blocks. I had a lot of Kaffe Fasset fabrics, and they have large bold prints so I use that to help blend from one color to the next.
Then I made a pieced block that uses the fabrics from the four blocks that would line up with it.
The pieced block is simple. the HST are 2.5 unfinished, the FG is 2.5*4.5 and the QST is 4.5" When you sew them together, you have a 8.5" unfinished block. Then I sewed them into strips, and sewed the strips together. I used half blocks on the edges, except I ran the fabric into the corners instead of using a different one there.