Fabric Choices

This picture is step 3 of the mystery quilt I'm working on.  At this point, I started to seriously question my fabric choices.  That yellow/green/pink combs is bright! However, I don't have enough yardage in anything else appropriate to switch at this point, so I'm trucking on forward.  I'm really hoping that the dark background will tone down the brights a bit.  If not, I guess I'll have to find a recipient who loves bright colours.

This is the area I struggle with the most, when I'm quilting.  Picking a set of fabrics that go well together.  I prefer to work with tone on tone fabrics, but that's even more challenging to match (for me, anyway).  At least if I can pick a focus fabric, I can theoretically draw my other fabrics from that.  Although, that was the approach for this quilt, and as you can see, it didn't work as well as I was hoping.

Maybe I should stick to monochromatic or 2-colour designs.  It certainly would be easier to match, without worrying about that oddball fabric that looks great with one or two of the others, and not so happy in full combination.

I had this same problem with another quilt I made.  Judy's "Morning Splash" pattern called for 6 different bright fabrics.  When I started to put it together, my particular fabric choices meant that there was a green center in the yellow squares.  It was terrible.  In this case, I could easily swap that block for a dark purple, and I love the end result.

Unfortunately, with this mystery quilt, not knowing how the fabrics were going to mix made it difficult for me to make good choices.  I guess that's part of the mystery, but I'm starting to think these just aren't my thing.  I need a bit more control over my fabric choices and layout.