Applique Quilt - "The Singing Tree"

We are currently painting the walls of our entryway, living room, dining room, and hall with COLOR after living here for 4 years surrounded by whiteness. It badly needs redoing after the scuffs and dents of moving in and years of two active boys! Two of the walls in the dining/living room are going to be painted "Napa Grape" (think VERY dark purple - like an eggplant!) and while we were painting I was thinking of what to put up when it is done. Then I remembered my quilt!

I made this applique quilt top and quilted about 1/3 of it, way back 18 years ago in college. It was my final project for a fibers class. It was inspired by a poem that my husband (boyfriend back then) had written about a tree, with its leaves in a pool around its trunk, but full of birds and their songs. The birds are stuffed and their feathers quilted on the quilt top, but the quilting pattern that shows on the back is only the swirling concentric lines of the birdsongs. The center grey circle is a 6 foot diameter. I planned (and STILL HAVE) tiny irridescent black beads to put on the birds wings to represent their shine. The poem was to have been embroidered around the grey circle, with a pattern of leaves in the 4 corners.

And here the quilt is, not a stitch done on it in all this time! But I'm thinking that the purple wall might be exactly where this quilt should go, and maybe I should finish it. I still have my notebook with my ideas and sketches, and my big round handquilting hoop...