Think about picture frames.
I'm doing some Amish-style quilting, small pieces, right now. It's amazing how
much difference the color of the border can make in one. Amish quilts use no
patterned fabrics, just solids, but the effects are striking because of the
colors and the arrangements. It's not really an "american" style of color
usage. They usually use black borders, which sounds gloomy, but it's not.
"Framing" a piece with different colors emphasizes different colors, and thus
patterns, and thus "ways of looking at" the quilted piece.
Amish broders are solid. Traditional American quilting usually uses pieced
blocks of different fabrics. Again, this makes the whole thing look different,
makes different parts stand out, makes you look at them differently.
And if you put the whole thing under glass, with a museum metal or an ornate
gold or carved wood frame, it becomes something else again.
Simple-mindedly,
Donna Darden.