Color Control the Scrappy Way

 In a way, I'm kind of glad I let the 2" cut squares get out of hand. That may sound weird, but since I have so many squares, I can play around with color control.

The black squares in this quilt were all leftover quilt backing. It has a grey design on the black, so if you think it looks more grey than black, there's a reason for that. I had enough red squares that I picked out the ones that only had white or black designs on it, plus red solids and blenders. For my white squares, they all have a black design on them. I ended up with a very color controlled palette all from scraps. This quilt was just 3.5" cut squares alternating with four patches made from the 2" cut squares.

 I had a lot of yellow squares, and not quite as many orange ones. To give myself more orange options, I added in white fabrics with orange designs. The white squares don't scream out they don't belong, since I staying within the color families I was using. 

If this scrap quilt looks fun to you, it's a free pattern called Twirling at the Disco, but since I was using squares cut at 2", I needed to do a little resizing. My background pieces needed to be cut at 3.5" x 3.5", and 3.5" x 6.5" instead of how it reads in the pattern. 

This quilt is Dancing Nine Patch, and it's written for 2" cut squares. I just made more blocks than the original quilt. The original quilt was quite scrappy, but since I grouped the colors in each nine patch, mine looks less scrappy. 

I'm planning another Twirling at the Disco quilt that will not be color controlled, and another Dancing Nine Patch that will be color controlled a different way. 

So where am I in the 2" cut square count? Well, at the end of my last post my count was 6,966.

The four patch quilt used 576 squares, Twirling at The Disco used an even 1,200, and the Dancing Nine Patch used 1,512. That brings my total 2" cut square usage to ....10,254 squares! I'm still sewing, so I'll keep adding them up!