My favorite color combination is a tertiary triad: orchid, salmon and lime green. I've made quilts from this combination for years and am happy to continue. When I shop, these are the colors I look for. My large blue stash just sits there-sometimes I deliberately choose to make a blue quilt, and give it away.
When I started quilting some 23 yrs ago, very quickly people were saying, "there's a Laura fabric", and they were right. Since I didn't want to be pigeon holed that quickly, I decided to make a switch. The rules were: only shop from the clearance tables and don't make any predictable decisions. I chose a very large ocean print with sting rays, shrimp, star fish, sea anemones, seaweed and fish as the focus fabric. The pattern is "Aquarium" from East Quilts West. The clerks were always surprised at my fabric choices. I still love that quilt. And continue to love finding unusual combinations from the clearance tables.