Applique trials for border

I found a pattern in a book about stenciling that I think will work well in the border of this quilt--it is similar to some of the shapes in the applique, but doesn't duplicate any of them exactly. But what colors to use? My first trial is above, all in dark blue. I'd like to get in some of the other colors, though--rusty red, lighter blue, dark green. I spent the morning today cutting out shapes in various colors and trying them out. Here are a couple of options with a view of the whole quilt; then I'll show some close-ups.

This one alternates red and blue in the flower shapes and uses green for the leafy shapes on the outside.

This one puts the red flowers on the outside and blue in the center. I also tried out a solid curvy line down the middle rather than the broken line, which was determined by the stencil-nature of the original pattern. I think the broken line works better for the quilt as well.

There's also the question of the color of the inner border. On all the photos above, you can see a dark blue inner border at the top and a red/orange border at the bottom. I haven't made a choice yet.

I also don't have to have the colors in the applique panels the same for each iteration; it could be a more random scatter. There are many, many, possibilities. It's good to do trials like this, but it would be helpful if I could figure out a choice by using design principles. It's the multitude of choices like this that led me to the FunQuilts Design Camp in 2005.

Beyond the colors, there will be one more decision. Will I center just one of these panels in each of the four borders, or will I repeat the panel a number of times on each side? Three panels would fit on a side, so I may just start with one in the middle and see what I think when that's done.

Here are closer shots of a number of trials. I'm going to wait a while to decide. If you have a preference--or you can help me with thinking it through in terms of design principle--do let me know! (Sorry for the long "list" of photos--I need to learn how to make a table in Blogger so I can show things like this side by side.)