Here's a blog with lots of great color inspirations. http://www.design-seeds.com/ Just scan through it, find some that speak to you, and create a folder (or print out) those palettes for future inspiration. From there, you can either work from your stash or buy fabrics that will go with that collection of colors.

Another way to come up with current and pleasing color selections is to use magazines or catalogs -- look for colors you like, and the combinations that are currently seen a lot in decor.

A third way -- use some of the pre-cut collections as the base colors for a quilt, pulling in the same tones from your stash until you feel more confident yourself. The jelly roll and charm sqare collections of fabrics already coordinate nicely, and most often, they are popular colors that tend to work well with home furnishings currently in stores.

Mostly, don't be afraid of color, and be willing to be wrong once in a while. In my opinion, most quilters make the mistake of playing color too safe and matchy matchy. The other common mistake, and one I often fall into myself is not having enough "white space" -- not necessarily white literally, but neutral, calm spaces that allow the design areas to shine.

RST
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OMG!!! I had no idea why those dots were on the selvedge! I do pick blenders to match the colors in the print, though.

Thanks for some interesting info!

I agree that practice will help me....

Not sure if it is still available - but - a few years back I bought a lovely little gadget at Sherwin Williams called a fandex. It is one of those fans with all the paint colors like you see at the paint counter in the stores. At the time it was about $10 and well worth it. I can look at the colors in my house in the room I plan to use them and know they are going to march perfectly. Works with fabric colors too!!

Here's a site that's fun to play with:

http://colorschemedesigner.com/

Thank you for sharing this with us, what a great site :D:D:D

I do this. I have made quilts with these colors and not used the inspiration fabric, just used it for color selection.

ROFL - while it's a nice thought that they put those dots there to help quilters pick coorinating colors, but that's not the reason they are there. It's part of the printing process, they're color registers. Every color on the fabric uses a different print plate, printed one at a time. The dots tell the operator that he has the plate registered correctly on the fabric.

1. Contrast (light and dark, not too many mediums
2. Complementary colors (see color wheel)
3. Black or white (you said you wanted it to pop!)

When I go to a quilt show I always pick one quilt that jumps out at me. It's usually one with only two or three fabrics, and lately those fabrics have been solids.

I bought Jinny Beyer's book Color Confidence for Quilters. I highly recommend it. There are tips in there I haven't seen elsewhere. Left on my own, I see colours in my brain that look great together, but in reality they look really bad. LOL