Joseph's Coat Update

On Saturday I spent some time auditioning and interviewing my fabrics for a role in my Joseph's Coat quilt.
My process began with a set of 12 fat quarters from Sandi Henderson's Meadowsweet line. I purchased my fabrics from Lori of Stitches N' Giggles. Not only does she have the best prices for Meadowsweet that I have found ($7.50/yard) but she has great customer service and shipped my order out the next day! I didn't take a picture of the package when I got it but my FQ's came folded up into cute little triangles. Lori cut all my chosen fabrics into FQ's without charging me any more {yup $7.50 for 4 FQ's! That's about $1.88 per FQ}

The second part of my process involved pulling fabrics from my stash that I though would play nicely with my Meadowsweet. Some were immediately rejected for bad attitudes {just not feeling it} and fighting {clashing.} After the first round of cuts came the second call back where each of the fabrics was auditioned against my beautiful Kona Cotton Charcoal. Here I rejected some fabrics mainly based on hue. The problems main problem was that some of the fabrics just looked "blah" on the background. The were of a more subdued hue and did not provide the "pop" I was looking for. The final part of the auditions involved pairing each of my fabrics with each other to make sure they were in harmony with each other.

Yesterday after church I was able to finish up all the petals for my first block.

I was still unsure of my color choices as I was working on the petals. But as soon as I laid them out on my Charcoal I was sold! I really really love the outcome! The colors just pop and it is just super duper perfect! {Yeah, I'm excited!! ok enough exclamation points.} Even Mr. PD paid me an unexpected compliment by saying "Wow! That looks really good." I was afraid the gray would overwhelm the prints and colors, but they work marvelously together.

I really enjoy the process of picking out fabrics for a quilt. {The color geek in me comes out to play! It's sad that I never got to take the required "Color Theory" class while in college because I think I would have loved it.} Do you enjoy the fabric picking process or do you hate it? Do you mix and match fabrics from different lines, manufacturers, and designers or so you just stick to using fabrics from the same line?