Here is a good example of a controlled scrappy quilt. I made it for my DGS, he wanted orange, but I had to add some greens and blues and blacks to break up the color a bit and add some interest and definition to the pattern I wanted.
So even tho it's scrappy, I controlled the number of colors and used a definite overall pattern, tho I didn't control how the colors went together in the strip areas too much.