Thanks again for the kind thoughts. It helps that we had several weeks of decline and time to say goodbye. Sandy wasn't good in the car so instead of leaving Buddy at home when I run errands, I've been taking him with me. Which leads me to a fabric moratorium confession -- even though I have allowed myself my thrift store exemptions sometimes I still feel guilty. Today the hubby had to work so no bowling, but I went to the Goodwill by the bowling alley and found a glorious piece of Alexander Henry rainbow southwest/cowboy print that would have been excellent as the back of the Confetti quilt. Oh well, that one is already made and done so I guess I'll have to make some sort of similar Western theme top. Happens that although I've been clearing out a lot of the small pieces, I still have quite a bit in my western box. It was 8 yards at $3/yard so $24 which is a huge amount for me to spend on a single piece of fabric (lol and roughly what I spent at the Walmart $1/yard sale). I consoled myself that the 2.5 yards of Confetti fabric I bought cost more than that.
I finished counting the squares and triangles I've made for the Scrap Metal top and have cut and pinned the remaining needed squares. I chose a binding fabric and have gotten that squared and ready to be made into bias. I've been trying to loosen up and just put fabrics together as they occurred first as triangles and then as squares. I'd like to just let the top be random, but I think I will need to work with those really light fabrics. I do have more light fabrics in the mix since the first go-around and maybe I can just let them fall where they may... doubtful, but maybe I can -- figuring though I will layout the blocks first before sashing so I can turn the light ones together. I'm just glad I didn't plan placement for each triangle in the each square (which I've been known to do...).
What I've found in my years of scrap piecing is that when something sticks out, well it sticks out so you might as well embrace that and make sure it sticks out!