Auditioning Fabric: Pot Holder

I mentioned in my last post that I shopped my stash and auditioned several fabrics before making the hot pad/pot holder; I thought I'd show a bit of how that went.

First I pulled all the fabrics that somewhat coordinated with the focus fabric and laid them all out, like so:

focus fabric & all coordinating fabrics
at this point, I had already narrowed down my pinks to the single pink shown here.
same with my reds. I was now deciding which combination to use.

Then I tried different combinations of brights and darks, referring to the pattern for placement. Would this work?

I really wanted the brown & turquoise prints to work. 

How about this?

Maybe if I removed the red, and just used the prints with the solid turquoise??

No? Maybe this?

Maybe if I just used one of them??
I played with these a bit more, because I *really* wanted those to work.
They didn't. 

Yes! I think we have a winner....

I finally admitted that I really needed a light, a dark & a bright.
NOT several brights trying to be darks instead.

Fabrics chosen, the pile became the hot pad; yep, I think I chose right.

finished hot pad.
Now I can't imagine it any other way.