Rhododendron Trail, At Last

In my last post, I mentioned that I didn't much like this quilt when it was finally done.  It languished on my quilt rack for a long time, until my friend Linda and her husband came from North Carolina to visit us on Long Island.  She is a wonderful quilter (see some of her quilts here) and she has a special talent for making me feel competant and re-kindling my love of quilting whenever we see each other.  She assured me that I'd like the quilt more after it was quilted, and she volunteered to quilt it for me at no charge.  What a friend indeed!!

Last year we met up in Florida and she took the quilt home to work her magic.  This week we met in Florida again and she brought along the quilt.  

Linda was right.  I do like it better.  Of course, absence makes the heart grow fonder, too.  I'm glad that she took her sweet time getting this done.  (Sorry, the palm tree photo-bombed this!).

Here you can see where all those flying geese found a home.  If I had known that this would be the border, I probably would have given up before I ever started.  I'm so glad I persisted!  

The back of the quilt is a pretty teal that Linda and I found while shopping in Ft. Myers last year.  Look closely and you can see the quilt motif that Linda chose.  I told her to just pick what she thought would be good, and I do think it's perfect.

This week we went back to the same quilt shop to pick out some fabric that I needed to make my next quilt top.  Of course, we ended up with teal -- there's lot of pink in this new quilt, too.  I'm not a huge pink fan, and I think some teal (my favorite color) helps me enjoy sewing all that pink.  Just getting started, you can follow my progress in the weeks to come.