The Photo Quilt Progress and Help Needed

Finally bit the bullet and got started assembling my mom’s 80th birthday photo quilt…It is made of 9 collages of photos from over the years of family(Leith and Connor), friends etc. About 5 generations of photos on the Leith side. I originally posted these collages in April of 2013, but I just got down to business yesterday.

My mom had scrounged through her fabric stash and came up with 2 fabrics she liked to use for the sashings…one medium dark green and one patterned lightish green. Maybe not enough contrast to capture the attic window 3D effect……but please look at the photo below since I need help. I have been playing with various values and colours to use for the framing step…a narrow band of fabric that completely surrounds each block.

Not sure which way to go…black looks too contrasty, while brown is not as bad. Also tried going lighter with pale green and near-white(look hard to see these). So what do you think????? Red would give the most pop but it would look too Christmassy…and the quilt also has to go with their bed quilt which has a lot of green and dark pink/burgundy in it(which is the reason mom chose the 2 fabrics for the frames). If I can find a red/orange that matches the flowers in the fabric that might work too. Or yellow?? But given that there is black in the patterned fabric, maybe black is the way to go…

I don’t think an option is to skip the frame…otherwise there is just too much of the same…..In hind-sight, a plainer, less busy fabric would have been better for the horizontal sashing..and this busy fabric will be used for the borders too. The frame pieces and the sashings will be narrower as the blocks get sewn together.