I rearrange my fabric on my shelves often. Sometimes pieces just "land" together that I never thought of combining. Also, if you have a blouse or sweater that you love the color combo, go with that when you shop. Most small prints will have a dominant color, just get it all together with the pallett you love.

All good suggestions, I take the fabric that grabbed my attention and try to find three others that have at least one or two colors from the first one.

A resource I have used is a book called "colorWorks: the crafter's guide to color" by Deb Menz.

I like using solids. They may not have movement but sometimes you need the quilt to stay still so you can admire the rest of it :lol:

Solids are great for framing, can help a focus fabric to stand out, can give your eyes somewhere to rest on a busy quilt and once it's quilted they don't look so stark :-)

I hardly ever use a solid, the seem so flat. I do use mottled or fabrics that read like solids. I try to use a large print, medium, and a small print. It works out really well. It just takes practice, and if you still need help, I'll loan you my sister, she really has a way with colors.LOL I run everything through her. I also take my fabric I want to use into my lqs
and they help me fill it in, if I'm not sure. They are great.

Many times the fabric stores will have a grouping of fabrics displayed all together. Maybe you could start with choosing a grouping or at least look to see how they fit that grouping together. I love picking fabrics and it is surprising what will go together if you just take a chance.

Fantastic ideas! Buying fabric is one of my favorite things to do. I try very hard to limit myself to spending only so much each month, sometimes that works. My husband just looks at my shelves and shakes his head; after 47 years he just smiles at me when I say I have to go shopping. I just purchased some ivory fabric with a faint white vine all over it to set off my bright patterns, think it will look very nice.

I just found this in another email. Maybe it will help:

http://www.allpeoplequilt.com/techni...ail=1901004116

Great advice from the members. My two cents, the rule of three; light, medium, dark; small, medium, large.
The sizes are relative to each other and so the values are.
Another good rule of thumb that helps me with "which one?" is, choose the fabric that makes the focus fabric look it's best.

I like this! I think even my feeble mind can remember this.

2 tips worked for me when i started quiliting

#1 use the colored dots on the selvage of the fabric to match colors... you can use fabric frm a bunch of different manfacturers that way

#2 when trying to get the value (light, med, dark) cut a small piece (i usually just clip an inch of the corner) put all the ones you want to use on the copier & take a black & white copy.... taking the color out of it leaves just the value...