Hello there! I’m popping in today to show off the finished Printshop quilt that Layla and I worked on together.

From the time she saw this collection by Alexia Abegg for the first time, it was all the love for Layla. The colors, the designs were all so perfect for her. We used a simple pattern from Alexia and altered it a bit. Layla chose her layout and we sewed the top together. You can read and see more in this post. As quilt tops often do, this one sat for awhile waiting to be basted and quilted. I’m super glad we waited because the new Black & White collection feature these adorable cats and pink chickens.I quilted it with straight lines in various widths. Most are about a 1/2″ apart. I love using Aurifil in 28wt  for quilting, but I didn’t have any on hand, so I used this Floriani which is actually a 2 ply polyester embroidery thread. I wasn’t expecting much out of it but DANG. It performed beautifully and I made it through the whole quilt without issue. I love that it has a soft sheen like a metallic. I quilted it on my Janome M100 which is not a big machine, and it did a stand up job. I was very happy with how well it handled the quilt. I’ve pretty much always used Janome and the thing I always think of with them is that the tension is always so spot on. This machine is no exception and it handled the bulk of the quilt quite well. That made for a happy Meredith because I greatly prefer hand quilting to machine quilting. I bound the quilt in a maroon solid from Free Spirit. I believe the color was Pomeganite. I was searching out a green, but I only had some scraps. My solids stash is pretty laughable. Still, I was going for a big constrast and I think this did the job. This was just the project I needed. I have been floundering on the craft front since we’ve been in Tennessee. It’s an area of my life I always feel is easy to control and is therefore a solace for me, but it has been anything but since moving. I’m glad I’m starting to find some things though. Next on the list is tracking down and completing the custom stuff I have in the works. I think finishing this quilt lended the perfect amount of gratification to give me some momentum. I have so many plans, but they need to happen. Just as a heads up, I’m *trying* to update my blog theme. So far it’s not gone well at all, but I’ve been able to keep it behind the scenes. If you see anything weird just know I’m working on it and hopefully we will be at a new and awesome normal soon.

Don’t forget to enter my giveaway on the last post! It closes Monday.

-Meredith