My definition of scrappy is using up leftovers from other quilt projects. I have made planned scrappy quilts, but mostly true scrap quilts. My friends give me their scraps and I have a good time. The pictures you see below are my
scrap quilts, made using my scrap bags.
My avatar is a scrap quilt made from a combination of scraps and yardage.
Sharon W.

Roberta Horton wrote a book called Scrap Quilts the Art of Making Do published in 1998. She asks the question what is a scrap quilt? She comes up with a list of ingredients. How many fabrics should be in a scrap quilt? Is there a magic number? She doesn't think so. She heard a story of a quilt moved out of the scrap category in a national competition because it contained only 65 rather than their required 75 fabrics. She shows a photo of a quilt from her collection with only 11 fabrics, but she considers it a scrap quilt. She loves fabrics and thinks quilts made with a lot of different fabrics give her more to look at and hence more to love. "A scrap quilt is impossible to memorize. It would require a lengthy phone conversation to a fellow quiltmaker to describe."

I love scrappy, but you have to make a lot of quilts in order to have left over scraps!

QuiltSage - a few weeks ago my cousin emailed me "you've got to see these";it was your post with several different quilts. I liked them so much I bookmarked the page and occasionally take another look because they make me smile. Love your avatar, very scrappy indeed, and my favorite from the earlier posting is Rouchsters, altho I loved them all.

Seeing your name above gave me a perfect opportunity to let you know you have two fans in NJ. Beautiful variety of work.

I agree, this has been a great and very interesting thread and topic. My idea of scrappy is pretty much what everyone else is saying....random, RANDOM, RANDOM!

My scrappy quilts are controlled in the fact that I do not want 2 blues or 2 browns together. I use scraps from my stash in possible but if I need more red or blue I will cut from my stash. I love scrappy quilts no matter how they are made.

I think it can be either or a combination of the two. My avatar was from some fat quarters, some tiny scraps of neutrals, and some larger leftovers that I liked...

BTW - I love your avatar.

OK, so I am in the process of making a "spools" quilt. All the backgrounds are yellow - two to five of each shade of yellow, some of which I had, some that were given to me, two or three fat quarters I bought to make up the difference. The spools are all different - all leftovers from other projects.

Since I bought a couple of fat quarters to get enough yellow, which "scrappy sorta thingy-ish" category will my quilt fall into?

Your avatar is beautiful, but scrappy to me, means totally scrappy. No rhymn or reason or pattern. LOL. Maybe that's why I've never done a completed one...

I'm wondering if the use of FQ's and making multiple fabric quilts has been making the definition of scrappy a little murky?

I like the narrower definiton of being made from scraps.

My problem area is with traditional patterns made with one unifying fabric plus the rest from scraps. I still consider these scrap quilts.

Kind of conflicts with the narrower definition though.