Port-de-France

Two posts in one day? It's been one of those days.

Port-de-France is quilted and bound, and finally made it outside for a photoshoot. The pale fabrics don't really make for the best photos though.

I stippled each section and dividing borders (sashing?), followed by the red border. Finally I stippled the HST and outer border as one section, and unfortunately had a little battle with an unexplained wavy border.

It seems to have turned out ok, with one little pucker on the back; a fair trade I think for getting the front sorted out.

Winter Chill

Melbourne is having it's coldest day today for two years; we haven't even cracked 10 degrees. That plus all the rain makes it perfect crafting weather. After four weeks quilting Summer at Aster Manor, I needed a little time away from the machine, so I've spent the last few days getting aquainted with some wool I bought last year.

It's a Lincraft wool, a mix of wool and soybean, and really nice to work with. The only downside is trying to match the colour everytime I join a new ball of wool...there are a few "offcuts" floating around my loungeroom. The colours are much nicer in person than they appear in the photo.

I've also finally started on Port-de-France; just a stipple this time, I couldn't face another template pattern for quite a while, and this will get this quilt done quite quickly.

Port-de-France and a Little Progress

Despite a few initial hiccups with the first block, I did eventually get this quilt pieced. Unfortunately the colours don't lend themselves well to photographs, especially in the autumn light....

Summer wind is basted up and in the machine...with a little help from Bella of course (we only just fit on the loungeroom floor).



And all three of my fur-babies are enjoying the sunshine streaming through the front door, even though it's not that warm out. Bella is at the top, Jack in the middle, and Millie (who has a really bad cold at the moment) is at the bottom.

BOM 12!

Finally, here we are at the last block. Has it been 12 months already?!

Now to assemble the quilt; I've got all the 'bits' ready to go, but I've found one minor problem....some of my blocks are a tad smaller than they should be. Most are only a fraction but block 2 is about 3/4" too small. It means a fair bit of 'easing' but hopefully any little wobbles in the sashing eases out by the time its quilted. You can see the puckered sashing in the top row, near the legs of the coffee table...

(not enough room on my lounge room floor, so all the blocks are a bit squashed up)

Which won't be for a little while as I still need to quilt Summer Wind, and finish Port-de-France. So much for my old method of only ever having one project on the go at a time! The main reason I keep putting off the quilting is that I hate spending money on batting...silly, I know.

I made my first fabric sale yesterday. It's safe to admit there was a bit of squealing and jumping going on in my house. I expect business to start slowly, but each little bit of progress is so exciting.

Port de France Blocks 9-11

A little more progress the last two days...

Block 9 is a sawtooth star, smaller than blocks 1-8, and there are six of them.

Block 10 is a pinwheel (times 3)

Block 11 is a churn dash, which I've never made before but really like (times 3).

Port de France Blocks 3-8

I've been sewing away like crazy, and finished all eight of the larger blocks for Port de France. I had a minor hiccup with block 8 in the same way as block 1, but I cut the background squares 1/8 inch larger and that seemed to fix it up. These are the blocks:

(apologies for the rotated photos, blogger keeps doing that even though they are the right way around on my computer).

In other, more frustrating news, my computer has a trojan...I've managed to get rid of most of it manually, but there must be something left behind as my browser gets hijacked occasionally...very annoying.

Finally Some Progress

Who'd have thought it would take four days to get a simple block sorted out! I spoke to another quilter working on the same pattern, and to the Fat Quarter Shop. I fiddled around with scraps and made a number of the same unit, testing to see if my 1/4 inch seam was off. I still couldn't get the block to work. So in the end I gave up on the "fancy" version of block 1 and made a simple version instead.

Bouyed by my success, I headed straight onto block 2, and it was assembled in about 30 mins. If block 1 is the only one in this quilt that is going to give me trouble, we might just be ok.

Bella appears to have taken a "naughty pill" today. She spent half the night trying to push a 50c coin under my door, and has spent a good amount of time "bull-dozing" the rug in my bedroom. She crouches down and runs at it, bunching it up. There also appears to have been some sort of game with her water bowl, as I walked into the kitchen to find water splashed all over the floor, fridge and cupboards!

What Am I Doing Wrong?

I thought I'd spend a relaxing Friday arvo working on the first block of the Port De France quilt; how wrong I was! Here is the problem, and I'm hoping someone can help:

If I follow these instructions:

I get this flying goose unit; there is no seam at the top, meaning the point gets cut off...

But if I offset the triangles, I get the seam allowance, but then the unit is 1/2 an inch too short to attach to the centre square.

This pattern is one of the most odd I've worked with; all the instructions are diagrams as shown above and no written directions. Anyone have any suggestions as to what I'm doing wrong?