Anything goes, up to a point. Quite often when I get the blocks made but before I sew them together there will be one fabric that sticks out like a sore thumb and just has to be yanked. Another alternative when that happens is to add more of it in different places around the top. I like a border with lots of different fabrics in it, too. There's a book that I find helpful, Nickel Quilts & Borders: 7 Quilts & 260 Borders from 5-Inch Squares by Pat Speth and Roxie Speth.

Go to Quiltville.com and find some of the most gorgeous scrappys ever made. Bonnie does many scrappy quilts in same colors. I did two green scrappys that everyone just loved. String blocks is where you can really do your scrappy thing. There is a gorgeous scrappy string block at quiltinggallery.com called the herringbone block. Very cool. Bonnie also does scrappy neutral string blocks she adds to her blocks in her patterns. I, also think the neutrals in your scrappy blocks, plus never lose sight of the color values - light, med, and darks are what make scrappys sing.

I will be watching the replies on this. I've often wondered about this myself. Thanks for asking.

I make only scrappy quilts because I like to play with regardless of the size.color.The one thing I do is to stay with the same background fabric in the quilt.I have found that when I used to use various background fabrics the overall look was not as good as when I used one fabric It pulled it together.My quilts are all queen or king and are wedding quilts for my 17 grand childern.

I was taught when making a scrap quilt to not worry about coordinating the colors. I just mix the cut pieces in a large container and pull out one at a time. However it turns out, it seems to look good.

Scrappy quilts should be without a scheme of color. Then I make the borders the color of where I want to use the quilt. That is where the color scheme comes in for me. Usually that color appears somewhere in my scraps and if not quite the same fabric as one of the scraps a close color works.

When looking at scrap quilts, I am most attracted to ones that have definite 'lights' or neutrals in addition to all the colors. Even the light/neutral doesn't have to be all the same color - just light enough to differ from all the others.

Don't forget to add a few uglies to your scrap quilts, they just seem to help. The log cabin quilt is my latest finished charity quilt.
Sharon

Scrappy quilts are my favourites!! I do the pull it an use it logic! As long as two fabrics that are the same don't end up beside each other! Usually I don't have to worry about that much! I just do what others before me have said divide between dark and light and sew away!!!

Here is one of my scrappy quilts, just to be contradictory, with a scrappy sashing, imho, it works for me![ATTACH=CONFIG]423473[/ATTACH]