Prism99

I do think taking out the neons and brights helped. The blue quilt does not have those.

The blue quilt has a lot more patterned fabric in it, and the patterns are small-scale (not batik-like). I counted at least 6 different printed fabrics, all in mid-tones but with most of them light mid-tones. I am seeing only 3 print fabrics in your layout, and 2 of them are batik-like rather than small print. The small prints add a lot of "wonk", in my opinion -- especially the small prints that have a light background.

You might also want to count up the proportions of light to dark to mid-tones in the original quilt. I am seeing a lot more white in it than dark, especially in the large center squares. This lightens up the quilt a lot. Also, I am seeing a lot of the small print fabrics in those light center squares.

As I see it, the center squares are dominant in this pattern. I would count up the number of center squares in the blue quilt, then figure out what proportion of them are prints, light solids and dark solids. Then try to replicate those proportions in your green quilt.

Edit: I'm also seeing a lot more light frames in the blue quilt than in yours. You might want to do the same counting thing with the frames to see what percentage of the frames are light, dark, and mid-tone. I think your frames tend to be more dark and mid-tone, with not as many lights. (It's getting hard for me to scroll back and forth between the blue quilt and your latest green quilt, so I can't do the comparisons as well as you can.)