Safe at Home Choose Your Center Adventure

As I've been working on this first row of blocks for the Safe At Home quilt, my keeps getting stuck on that very very light grey center square. It was too much contrast and to my eye detracts from the overall form of the block.

Now that I'm closer to final assembly on these blocks, it was finally time 

"to make visual decisions visually"!

 This is almost right, but too much texture.

 As much as I love this fabric, it's all wrong for these centers, too strong of a pattern design, and the shade is much too dark.

 I almost went with this one, but decided the print was too much texture.

I wanted it to be this one because I love this print so much, but it was still too pale.

Yes! This almost-a-solid was the perfect combination of very slight texture and the right subtle shades of grey.

 Here's how it looks in all the blocks so far. On the right is a column of the grey squares I tried out in this exercise. Maybe I'll be able to use them in the rest of the rows of this quilt, who knows? I haven't looked at the rest of the rows yet!