My mother used nothing but white for borders and sashing so I've sworn that I never will (You'll find a lot of what I do in quilting consists of rejecting whatever it is my mother did:)) When a pattern calls for white, I love love love white fabric with a white screen print on it. It gives it a nice texture and keeps it from looking boring, but it's subtle enough to relegate itself to the background and let the colored peices shine. For the quilt in my pic, I used an ivory with a white screenprint.