Design advice please!

[FlamingoCrimbo]

I'm planning to make my DDs a quilted alphabet wall hanging. They need an alphabet up and I love sewing. I've decided to cut all the letters out, upper and lower case, put fusible interfacing on the back and then applique them on to the wall hanging using blanket stitch. The colours I have for the letters are bright pink and bright orange. I have a lovely blue colour for the background.

What I can't decide is:

1. whether to cut out the squares of the backing fabric and to do each letter (Aa, for example) on one square, then patchwork them all together.

or

1. sew the letters onto one large piece of fabric

If I do 1. I'd have the chance to use different backing fabrics, but that could look too busy. But it would be easier to sew as I'll be doing the blanket stitch by hand so will have all the letters and squares in a basket and do them when I can.

Whichever I choose, will it look ok if I jsut do the quilting along the lines of the squares? What if I did a line either side of each line where the squares join? Would that look nice? If I did them in a contrasting thread?

i think different coloured backgrounds will look great - maybe just stick to a couple of colours to keep it looking too busy.

the quilting you mention will be fine as it won't disrract from the letters

I did the same sort of effect on this wall hanging

i think different background colours would be good as well. also its easier to start again if one part goes wrong.

you don't have to choose hugely different colours for the background.

Hmm...so going to have to think about the fabrics a bit more then.

If I have six rows of five squares (will this work?).

Aa Bb Cc

Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh

Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm

Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr

Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww

Xx Yy XX

I don't want to alternate the pink and orange letters as that'll create columns all the same colour.

Should I do a chequer-board with the background colours and the letter colours?

I have lots of scraps of patterned fabric - what if I made the background fabric really random, and just had large, bold letters in the pink and orange?

Maybe I need to cut out all the letters and then try them on different fabrics.

Any suggestions for motifs I can put in the four corners?

I love a new project!

Dizzyday - your patchwork is beautiful! You're very talented. I'm really