It all started with diving into my scraps to make kits for a charity. Some vintage red, yellow, and blue calico prints landed together on the table.
Now I don’t do much strip piecing and in the past did garment sewing, so my scraps are odd sizes and shapes. I decided to cut the largest possible, then keep cutting smaller till the scrap was used up. (Yes I saved some bits for crumbs later.)
Then I started to arrange the pieces on the design wall.
I had two ways to go: design whatever size my scraps would make or pick a size and add solids (of which I have plenty). I started planning for adding solids, but it was too hard to visualize the end result.
Two things made designing by layout difficult: the odd way they “fit” because of added seam allowances–I lost track of real sizes and seam lines, and the blank spots. So I moved to graph paper and sketched options. To do this I had to commit to a size.
The above photo is one of the options–for a doll quilt 20 x 20. I arranged the pieces I have according to the plan and counted up what I needed. I can trim down some unused larger pieces and finish it mostly with scraps. The only addition will be a 2-inch border and the back.
Check out other peoples’ design walls at Patchwork Times.
knitNkwilt 
I like it. Exploring postage stamp-style quilts made up of different size “stamps” is an interest of mine. I look forward to seeing your results.
Looks like great fun playing with your scraps! I am far too lazy and perhaps liberated to go to that much trouble. I would set stuff together and then cut off or sew more on as needed to fit scraps together. I like though that you found an approach that makes you happy.
I do like the way it looks on the wall. It’s the kind of thing I don’t always do, but that I do some of the time. Usually, when I get to that point of confusion, I start sewing smaller units together and placing them here and there, and then I fill in gaps and holes. LOL At the end, it is what it is. =)
Just wanted to say thank you for your comment 🙂
Loving your vintage scraps – they look similar to some I got from a relative in America a few years back (they were over 30 years old!)
Using some strip scraps, I made 12.5 ” square blocks from about 65 strips of prints in orange, yellow, and red . I made them corner to corner. Then, I sewed four together. It’s like having a sunset in the room all the watime.. Then, I found that new books in the library showed ways to fit the bright
Looks like fun and I can visualise how it all comes together.