I am currently working on my second Trail Mix. Both were part of a group exchange with 6-8 friends. We exchanged blocks every few months with the only requirement that there were no more duplicates than the number participating and that the trail be prominent using white, off-white or beige tone-on-tones. Some pieced their block sections using a strata method but I wanted to use up my very small scraps. At the end of the swap we put our quilts together and interestingly 5 of us brought our quilts to a yearly retreat to cover our beds. I still have mine and love it. I encourage you to just have fun. We decided to do it as a group project to get as many different fabrics as possible. We did keep the large scale prints to a minimum and used fabrics similar to the pattern.
The one we are currently working on is for Christmas and uses reds, greens, golds...could use fabrics other than Christmas ones. We are now making the last blocks and hope to have it completed for Christmas.