Rff1010

Catitude - I like that quilt! Its a pure expression of scrappy. A suggestion- sometime scrappy like that can be tamed with a solid border. The Kaufman Quilting Calculator tells me you only need 1.5 yards for a non-miter border of something solid-ish cut to 5.5 inches and it will turn the whole thing 90x90. I'm sure you have something floating around....

retiredteacher09

Another top ready for my church group to finish, The squares were cut by a group for my church quilting group and sometimes needed to be squared up. 🤷‍♀️ It is 72” by 82”. My goal is to get through all of the 6” squares this month which would clear 3 or 4 shoebox tubs. Of course, I have had this plan for several years to use up the various sizes cut.

Cattitude

Teach- I like the effect of the large dots in the background.....shakes it up a bit! I admire your resolve to make use of what you have been given.....I am sure you would rather be working on your own projects!

retiredteacher09

Cattitude: Thanks for the compliment. The large dot fabric came from a duvet cover that a friend of mine didn’t want when she was moving. I was struggling with a color to sash with and found this when I was cleaning a messy spot up. Lol! I decided it would work. As far as working on my own projects, I do sew a few here and there for my personal use but my heart is really into using my fabric, my DMIL’s fabric, (Fulfilling my DFIL’s wish for charity quilts), and fabric donations for making quilt tops for my church group. I like the challenge of doing scrappy whether my own design or a pattern. Scrappy quilt tops actually cover up my insecurity of choosing colors that go well together. So it’s a win/win for me.

However, I do have Christmas fabrics cut and ready to go for a quilt top that will be for me.

Rff1010

Is there always a time in scrappy quilting that your perfect concept just looks like a hot mess? Or just me?

Iceblossom

Rff1010, Have faith and persevere! That is a bold concept and I applaud you for it. It's always been hard for me to do things like sampler and mixed block quilts, but the basic... honesty? of the collection of blocks and fabrics appeals to me. That is just the layout and not on the backing fabric, or where are you going from here??

It will certainly be full of personality and therefore charm however you go. Keep us posted!

Conchalea

Rff1010, I like the layout! The way you've chosen to position the blocks looks great to me.

Cattitude

Rff1010- I wouldn’t have the guts to put in the fans.....my brain is too obsessed with symmetry. But so often I see other folks work and say ‘who would have thunk it?’. One day I hope to be more daring with my choices!

oksewglad

At first look with the thumbnail photo your self described "hot mess" looks striking with a charcoal gray setting (your flooring). I'd think about using a similar color for your setting. Or am I totally off the wall?

Iceblossom

That's the fun thing about getting input from our quilting friends. I wasn't quite sure if that was the backing fabric or not, it is striking in it's own way.

If I was more of a quilter than a piecer, I'd think about some basic muslin for the fan setting triangles to make some space for quilting. That can be a nice way to personalize a piece for some one, to put some design with a connection to them in the open space.

But I'm not a quilter and wish to hide that aspect, so maybe, I would turn that middle fan upside down, and use some sort of bright busy posies print like a 70s-80s Concord/VIP fabric from a half yard piece left in my stash... it would be wicked cool if I had another piece of yardage related to that, so maybe a blue colorway and a red one or scale change or something to put an additional wide single border around the whole thing after that.