Ina,
I took a class on color that helped a lot. I heartily recommend it.
We used a book on color by Gai Perry. You can use this book and teach yourself, I'm sure.
We learned that ALL colors go together. It's what pleases YOUR eye, as Sandra mentioned.
One lesson that I really enjoyed was to pick a favorite vase, dish, cup, picture, whatever, and select the colors you find there to build your quilt. I did and it's the one quilt that I constantly get compliments on. I used my grandmother's candy dish. It was easy to select fabrics once I had the colors in mind. (I carried that candy dish all over the place!):lol:
I've learned to add some plaids and other prints to the mix of florals and solids. I love the tone-on-tone fabrics and blenders. They're awesome additions to any quilt.
Try to get different values (that's a hard one to learn), different size prints (large and small and everything in-between).
If you have a focus fabric check the side of the fabric they often have a line of dots with the colors found in the fabric. Look at your pattern and decide how many colors you want. I've mistakenly picked too many colors and then you have to weed them out. Argh! What a chore! I wanted them all!!!
Main thing is to play with the fabrics! Have fun with it and it'll show in your final project!
"Trust me!" :lol: