I've even been experimenting with adding cording and then whipping the edge to the front rather than to the back, which saves me the step of attaching binding tape by hand. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir when I was doing it. My preference is black for the profile, but my sister and daughter liked the gray against navy. The main thing is to be sure there is high contrast between the background and the profile. I marry different pieces by stewing them together.
Some pieces appear blotchy and others are monochromatic.
I dip dyed the sunset background for the nude with Majic Carpet acid dyes of blue, red, and yellow. If these primary colors are dipped in that order, you get blue into violet into red into orange into yellow, and you avoid any green in the sky. I started hooking at the bottom of the design with the violet and worked through the color changes to the top. The background for the hummingbird was first dyed green. Then I added spots of red, yellow, and blue to suggest flowers.