My friend was ask to make an earth tone quilt by a friend of hers for her daughter's wedding gift. My friend thought of dark greens, rust, golds, etc. Come to find out the bride likes tones of brown. My friend doesn't like browns but she began collecting fabrics. She is doing a snowball block and had a chocolate mousse color for the center. It just didn't look right, the practice blocks she did were just too dull. So she switched out the mousse color center for a lighter color, more like cream. That made the other browns stand out and was the perfect color. So I would say use some white or off-white fabric to make the browns perk up. Post a picture when you are done!