Scrap Quilt tips from Lynn Roddy Brown (Houston Quilt show)

I went to a lecture called Simple Strategies for Scrap Quilts by Lynn Roddy Brown at the Houston Show. I'll try to share some of the tips I noted...scribbled some notes...lol. Some of this you all probably know, but since I'm pretty much a beginner...it helped me!

Before you start:

1.) COLOR VALUE is the most important thing to consider when making scrap quilts. Sort your scraps in to color values....light, medium, and dark. The placement of the values is what creates your design/patterns.
* fabrics with all three values in them....i.e. a print that has light, med, and dark in it is more difficult to use in scrap quilts. Fabrics for scrap quilts need to have similar values within the fabric piece...it's easier to work with.

2.) TEXTURE...visual texture....patterns....add pop and are great to use vs. small tiny prints. Multi textures within similar fabric values add visual interest.

Then...design your quilt:
3.) Quilts based on COLOR....pick two-three colors and then consider value within the color scheme and pattern.

4.) Quilts based on RELATED FABRICS...(i.e. all children's bright prints or all seasonal theme...etc.)

5.) Quilts based on COMMON BACKGROUND/CONTRAST....dark and light backgrounds can be manipulated to make your design pop......you can make the same quilt, but make totally different looks by manipulating your common and contrasting fabrics within the squares.

Overall pattern values need to be consistent...light to medium to dark. (I'm not sure why I wrote that one....lol....but it sounds profound.)

Hope this all makes some sense. It really made sense with her example quilts...beautiful. She does have a book out on scrap quilts available on Amazon and has another one coming out very soon. :peek:

Thanks for posting those tips. You did better than I usually do. I jot notes down thinking they make perfect sense, but later when I look them over I have no idea what I meant? LOL I bet it was especially nice to see her examples?

Yes...I'm printing this and putting it in my quilt folder. I find fabric choice the most difficult thing to plan. How was the show??

The show was WONDERFUL.....I wrote a long posting about it on the TODAY thread earlier. It was a totally for me day. I especially enjoyed the variety of the gallery quilts...took over 1/2 the convention center (which is huge)...hundreds of them. Everything from 1800 vintage quilts from the D.A.R. to highly contemporary art quilts with varied media. Sharon Shaumbers quilt that won best of show was untterly unbelievable. The docent that was with the quilt said there were over 90 types of quilting in it. I also got some great charity quilt info...will post that later as well.