I have a fabric that screams OBW to me. It has a 24" repeat, and a huge print. The largest flower is 6". I think it needs to be larger hexagons, but how big is too big? Would 5" or 5 1/2" strips be too much?

There's nothing stopping you from doing it whatever size you wish.

To avoid wastage, keep your strips so they work out with the 24". In a perfect world, that'd mean you could do four 6" or three 8", so a little smaller would allow for evening up, eg. 5-3/4" or 7-3/4".

That being said ... keeping them smaller will still some interesting kaleido patterns and colours will develop.

I *think* that someone on the board did a study once on different strip sizes for OBW's. It might have been k3n? You do get a different look with the different sizes. Offhand, I would say that 3.5" is about the biggest you want to use.

I'm afraid that if I make them too small it will be mostly colored hexes and not so much pattern - which isn't necessarily bad, just not near as much fun! And at this point bigger is better also because it would go together faster, and I'd like to at least get the top done in the next couple weeks. I've gone as small as 2 1/2", but never bigger than 4" -- but I've never worked with a print this large either... it's intimidating me (naughty fabric, I'll show it in the end!)

If there are large patches that read "solid" then maybe it's not the right fabric for a OBW. It would probably make a super border though. Can you check it out with mirrors to see what the designs would be in a OBW?

Good point!
... maybe you could show us a picture of the fabric.
Also, include a ruler or tape measure to give us a guide of the size of the print.

Here is my fabric with a 12 1/2" ruler on it.

Did you try the mirrors to see what you think?

It's lovely fabric, and would be calling out to me too! ... though my gut feeling is that the flowers are too large, and without much variance within each. I'm not sure this fabric would show itself to the best in a OBW, even in the larger size triangles.

However, there is a way you could try it IRL, without wasting a lot of fabric. Cut a strip the full length of the six repeats of the large size triangle you are considering. Then stack up your six layers and cut.

Worse case scenario, you make a few blocks and say, oh no ... and have some orphan hexes to do something with.

Best case, you say, Yessssssssssss and continue on with the full yardage.

Good plan!

If you haven't already cut this up, you could try it as a stack 'n whack. I think it would look awesome in that.