I separated the fabrics into lights and darks. A few were kind of in between, but by putting them in with the lighter ones, I came out with 38 in each stack. Perfect! It was much easier to visualize after doing that sorting.
8 per square is definitely too many. My eyes would go buggy on me with too much busyness. Several of you have suggested 4 colors. Clarification question: do you mean 2 colors for the background and 2 colors for the petals, or each of the four colors getting a corner of the background and a petal? In my mind I'm leaning toward the first, or just going with 2 colors per block total.
By doing the math, I think I'll need more fabric to make a queen size, but I don't know yet if I'll use setting squares or do the whole thing in these blocks. I may get yardage of a coordinating fabric and incorporate it into some of the blocks, setting squares, and border. Thank you for your patience as I think out loud here.
I guess what I need to do is just start cutting and laying out to see how it all falls. When I decide how it will all go, I'll use a separate sandwich bag for each block so I can grab and go as I need to and know I have all the right pieces together.
Again, I appreciate all of your ideas. It's been really helpful and is motivating me to take the leap and get started.