I bring my 11 yo daughter with me. She has a far better eye for color than I do and can tell me if the colors work together or not. I also found I do better if I limit myself to 3 or 4 colors in a quilt. The baby quilt I'm making right now is shades of white, pink and lavender. I found out the hard way on it that I couldn't do a lot of different colors and spent some quality time with a seam ripper sorting it out. I can't do scrappy either, I have a lot of respect for those who can. Don't worry too much about prints except maybe to stay with small patterns to start. You're cutting the fabric into little pieces anyway. I love blender type fabrics, they give a little variety while staying in the same color range. It can also be helpful to check out books on quilts at your local library and go thru the magazines there too for ideas of what works for you.
Give yourself some time. You'll get to where you're more comfortable with picking fabrics soon enough.
Rodney

Color wheels and selvage dots are all very helpful, but mostly what I have found is, if I like the colors I have chosen, then it really doesn't matter if they "go" together. One of my friends told me I have a knack for taking fabrics one wouldn't think of using together and making them work.

Go to Craftsy and sign up for last years free block of the month blocks, it is more about choosing and understanding colors that actual quilting, they do make a quilt, but the color is the most imortant thing they discuss. Maybe this will help you.

I never buy "lines of fabric". I usually find one fabric I like, then the rest is hubby's job. He has a much better eye for color than I do. We don't always agree but he really is better at picking.

Count me in the group that chooses a print fabric I really like then picks my other colors and fabric prints to go with that first (the focus) fabric.
That focus fabric can then become the star of your quilt or you can move it into the background and use your other fabrics as the stars. Spread it out and lay your fabrics on top of it, do they show up well and make the eye stop on them? Or does the first fabric call your eye away so that you feel compelled to look at it? If the second thing happens, then you would want to use that fabric as the star of your quilt. Make it the center or main fabric in the blocks, and use the other fabrics for accent. If you don't want to use it as the star, then just keep the other fabrics and you don't have to buy that focus fabric. Look for a fabric that you can lay your other fabrics on that seems to "hug" them but lets them draw your eye first. That will be your background fabric. Often this is a solid or tone on tone. I am partial to tone on tones for variety but am not against a good solid when the main body of the quilt is very busy.

I often choose a print that has many colors in it and pick my colors from that fabric. I use a variety of print sizes in tone on tones and such that will work well together. This quilt was a challenge, the checked fabrics had to be used in the quilt.
The 2nd quilt pictured was also a challenge, we had to use the robot fabric and could only use solid fabrics with it.
Sharon

I have always loved color and was able to put colors together well. My DM had a awful time with colors until I told her to look and study nature, to walk in her flower gardens and study photos. That helped her so much. Look at pictures of quilts you like and study the colors that were used. When I first started quilting I would draw several pictures of my pattern and color them until I found a combination I liked. That gave me a overall view of what my finished quilt would look like.

Ever nice purplefriend
Some day my colors will work out like that.
Went shopping to day and got some bundles of fabric there is 5 patterns in them so Ill start this.
And have been doing a lot of reading and looking at books also .
There sure is a lot out there.
Thanks everyone

Tom

I still do this. I have lots of patterns drawn on graph paper and colored that I haven't even started. Picking fabrics isn't really hard for me as I grew up surrounded by quilts my mother, aunt, and great grandma made, but picking a color scheme is the hard part because I like all the color schemes I come up with. The only quilts I would have trouble doing would be a neutral quilt, I'd be tempted to put some sort of color in it.

cjsews has pretty much the system (if you want to call it that) that I use when picking fabrics for a quilt. Start with a great print, then if you don't feel comfortable picking colors, look at the selvedge of that great print and you will find circles of all the colors that were used in that print and choose from that pallet and you can't go wrong. I've been told that I have an eye for color, but using this method, people will say that you do too.