I try to stay within one color family of brights, duskies, drabs, muted, or neutrals, etc. I'm mostly a scrappy quilter, so there's usually no dots on my fabrics to go by. Many of my quilts are just a hodge-podge of color, but when I'm going for a more, "designed look," I try to see how saturated the colors are, or if there are grey, or brown tones in the colors. There's also usually a contrast color used in the mix...say tomato red, or mustard yellow, to offset the drabs, or navy blue to offset the bright orange, or hot, raspberry pink.
I get a lot of my inspiration from modern quilters, although, I'm mostly a traditional quilter. The modern quilters have to depend a great deal more on color to make their impact, since they usually aren't made with complicated designs.
~ Cindy