Vietnam Memento

A few years ago my sister and brother in law lived in Vietnam for six months while he taught English. I went over for a holiday at the end of the contract and after a few days in Hanoi we went on the overnight train up to the mountain town of Sapa. As my sister was recovering from surgery on her leg and my brother in law from a severe bout of food poisoning, I wandered around town a lot on my own and spent most afternoons with the Hmong village women. These women would walk up to twelve kms a day to come to town to sell their needlework to the tourists. It was amazing to sit with them and watch them stitching-each design is one families traditional work. My sister used to say 'Are you off to see your friends?' and that is what it felt like.
Like a good tourist I managed to part with my money and purchase some of their items which have sat in a bag for a long time now so I thought it was time to do something with them.
These stitcheries are about to become a wallhanging-if you click on the photos you will see them clearly. Don't know why they look like they do here!!

They are stitched on hand dyed indigo fabric and are very intricately stitched. They would not stand up to a lot of washing so hence a wall hanging. I bought fabrics that I thought would suit-

and with this design-by Mary Metcalf and featured in the New Zealand Quilter magazine.

BUT NO-it didn't grab me once I started.
So now I have bordered all the stitcheries-with a Moda Cotton called Weave which is an exact match to the colour of the stitching Don't know why the solid has that pattern all over it in Blogger-in the camera it is solid!!

and am using the idea of Jacquie Gering called Variable framing featured in this book-

I am just having one frame around the stitcheries and using navy blue for the negative space.
One block is done and liking it so far-

Suggestions and Comments Welcome