Pastels

My garden is flush this year with an abundance of delicate columbine.  Perched atop tall, slender stems, their blossoms range from the lightest, palest blush of pinky-lavender . . .

 to blues . . .

and purples . . .

They remind me of a beautiful vintage quilt that came into my possession about 10 years ago.  From a distance it's beautiful,

but on closer inspection, some of the fabrics are quite damaged.

It's a shame, really, and it's too extensive of a repair job for me to undertake, so I wondered how else I could use this quilt.

Every bit of it is hand-pieced, as well as hand-quilted, as you can see from the tiny, even stitches on the back.

After several days of working up the courage, I finally got out my best fabric scissors and began cutting from one edge of the quilt, while Baby supervised:

After I trimmed a bit, some sweet quilted stars emerged:

 

 And I knew exactly what to do with them!