SillySusan: Congratulations on getting the baby quilts done. :). Way to use up stash!

I have tons of assorted fabric; bins of coordinated fabric to be made into quilts; finishing up a king disappearing 4-patch with 8 1/2 " blocks; plus scraps, scraps, scraps. New Years resolution is Not to buy any new project fabric, only what is required to complete a project. And then my favorite quilt shop has a super sale....or just a mediocre one....and I certainly don't want her to go out of business ....so I can't resist. I'm in with that disclaimer.

So I need help! No, I'm not tempted to buy exactly, but on letting go of my desire for control.

While typically I do most of my quilts as scrap or charm quilts, I find what works well for me is to have some consistent placement or fabrics to help calm down the wild scraps. Sure, for the "colors" I use a lot of different stuff but I definitely prefer to have a consistent background.

I'm going to be making these flying square blocks (link a couple of pages ago) and am about to cut the whites I'll be using. I want to use up lots of little pieces of white on white, but part of me is concerned about how they will look completed, I know just looking in the box some pieces are very bright white, some more yellow, grey, whatever.

So how do you quilters do it? Do you just mix and match? Do you do all the same background in the same block? Do you just relax and figure it will all work in the end? I'm having problems relaxing, funny that using different whites is out of my comfort zone.

What I am thinking is that I should cut multiple different pieces of the white-on-white and use my surplus Y2K trading squares (lol yes, they've been sitting in my strip box for all these years) on those strips for a different set of scraps than the 9-patches, with each side of the block using a different white-on-white.

I haven't fully fleshed out this quilt in my mind. I know that if I add white sashing the outer rings of the 9-patches and the sashing will form a resulting white 9-patch shape and I might want to go that route. In that case should I continue with random pieces or should I use one consistent piece for the sashing?? Maybe I should just go play in Electric Quilt and do a bit more planing, even though I was trying hard to just let this project happen.

Edits:
Here's that link again
http://www.allpeoplequilt.com/quilt-...es-quilt-block

My 9-patches will all be scrappy, no attempt at light or dark corners or anything. I went through and divided my strips into light/dark, which meant mediums landed on both sides and will land together.

Iceb..I made a large mini with scrap lights a while back and you can see the variations of the lights

https://www.quiltingboard.com/pictur...i-t289801.html

and just this fall made a basket quilt with them as well but can't find a picture of it.

Hope this helps you visualize the look.

That's lovely, Oksewglad, and looky at all those tiny 9-patches! I can certainly live with using various lights in a project like that, this one the whites will be actually touching.

Think I'm going to mosey over to the other computer and play with EQ for a bit (out of licenses to put it on my current rig). Maybe I'll like it best without sashing, in which case I'm good to go. Maybe when I know the yardage amounts I might have a piece big enough for sashing. Maybe a lot of things! LOL

One of the ladies I quilt with, she's big on being "organic" and letting the projects grow. Me, I'm a planner to the Nth degree. It's just how I am. It's funny though, when I help/teach people with scrap quilting I tell them if you through enough fabric at it, it all works. I need to take my own advice sometimes!

Do you remember that lady who put all darks in one bag and all lights in another? She would pull one square from each bag without looking and just sew them together to make her scrappy quilts. She bragged about never selecting, just random, she said, and it always comes out perfect. She was on TV once, with Nancy Z., I think, and was caught cheating! She pulled the two squares and then put one of them back to pull another one! Everyone caught her! I'm sure the TV watchers were heard laughing from coast-to-coast!

We're all different and that's variety. It seems you like things planned out ahead, to the Nth degree. Al long as I can keep making design decisions, the process stays interesting and I'm actively involved. After that it's persevere to the end. Quilting is a visual art form (with some tactile thrown in). The saying is "make visual decisions visually". I do a lot of planning visually in my head, and then when I get stuck, it goes on the design wall and start auditioning. Needless to say I like improvisational. As I've looked back through my quilts, there are some improvisational quilts from 20 years ago.

Several days ago, I said I'd need to purchase fabric for a planned fabric. Since driving conditions were questionable and DH was using my car and I was anxious to get started, stash shopping became more desirable. Success, had good substitutes. And putting on borders now. It'll be ~2 yds out of stash. Yeh!!!

Way to go, Petthefabric! That's the best solution to an over-abundant stash! Good ole snow and ice! We are expecting rain this weekend and all of next week. Great time for me to use up some stash!! Now, if the TV breaks down for a few days, it will even be better! ... Well, maybe we shouldn't get that crazy! :)

In Jan I added 8 yards of background. Needed 4 yards but also found 30s cream so I bought 4 more yards.

Yesterday i bought 2 FQs.

But I Finished some stuff this month
that took 8 yards from stash for quilt front & back, gift for great nephew
UFO backing for another quilt 4 yards, (giving left over yard to sister), total 5 yards
2nd quilt back 4 yards
so total 17 yards
grand total from stash 8.5