Always Choose Tropical: Colour & Inspiration Tuesday

Always Choose Tropical

I am slowly working through a huge backlog of blog-relevant news and quilty happenings! I can’t believe July has been such a huge month, it certainly wasn’t forecast that way. Or maybe I just wasn’t paying attention! Anyway, we’re halfway in, and I still need to post two Love with a Twist patterns (aiming for one on Friday), an unboxing post for Island Batik (next week), and a number of other smaller things I’m messing around with.

But before all that, I really want to give you the lowdown on the Chameleon challenge quilt that I made for our recent Festival of Quilts, “Always Choose Tropical”. It was so much fun to make and show, so let’s do that now.

Many Moons Ago….

A long time ago, in a summer several summers ago, I was playing with ideas. Two completely unrelated ideas that became somewhat entangled and then forgotten.

The first was conceived at the outdoor pool while supervising my kids’ swimming lessons. I took a photo of the pool’s new decor for Colour and Inspiration Tuesday, and the colours sparked a picnic quilt design that has not come to fruition yet. But I liked it, and it stuck in my head. The only thing you really need to know about it is that the design has many tri-coloured popsicles on it.

The second idea I was playing with at the time was for a disappearing chameleon quilt. Just for fun. And then I thought “How much more fun would it be if chameleons preferred iced lollies to insects?”

And so the two ideas became merged and the basic design of “Always Choose Tropical” was born. At the time I thought it would make an awesome toddler quilt. But it too got laid aside when I was awarded my first Island Batik Ambassadorship.

Fast Forward to 2019

Every year the South Australian Festival of Quilts has a challenge theme for a quilt under 100 cm in width and length. This year’s theme was “Tropical Vibes”, which as I already explained, didn’t initially excite me. That was, until I remembered the popsicles and chameleons design I had tucked away. All I had to do was resize it to under 100cm long and it was ready to make. It was a goer!

Since it was being made especially for the show, I put all my best work into it. Here are some of the details of Always Choose Tropical:

I cut the chameleon and leaf appliqués out using my brother ScanNCut. Before I owned a digital cutter I tried to cut out a chameleon with scissors. Doing the tail was pure misery!

The appliqués were backed with polyester batting (trapunto) to give them definition. They were then stitched down with straight stitch and Madeira Rayon thread.

I used Madeira metallic thread to sparkle up the bugs.

I double-batted the background underneath the trapunto appliqués. Then I did really dense quilting around the chameleons to bring them right out.

Embellishing Always Choose Tropical

I added 3D flowers by pulling some of these decorative blooms apart.

The hardest bit was deciding on a centre for the flowers. I tried circles of all different colours until I finally realised it was the shape of the centres, not the colour, that was displeasing me. Irregular star centres made all the difference.

I placed one flower in the wrong spot compared to my original plan, so to restore the visual balance I added an unopened bud. This was created by cutting a flower down to three petals and folding it over onto itself. I love mistakes that cause improvements. 😀

Other little details included a cheeky chameleon out of frame.

And a 1/4″ wide flange around the binding for that last bit of Ooomph! Being a show quilt, I paid extra attention to getting the binding corners nice and pointy.

I gave this quilt everything I had. And I knew it was good when it was finished, so I was not-so-secretly hoping for a ribbon, any colour. I do usually try not to set myself up for disappointment like that, but the risk was real with this one. For it to place first in its category at the show was the icing on the cake of getting the hoped for ribbon, and Always Choose Tropical will now take pride of place on the wall as the Chameleon’s quilt. It would have anyway, it makes me feel happy. 😀

I hope you’ve enjoyed briefly seeing how it came together.

Other Threads of Success in our Linky Party

Last week the Chameleon also turned it on with his Artsy Fartsy free-motion stitched selfie. So, it seems only fair that two of this week’s features go to some posts of a similar thread. Let’s have a look at some more Artsy Fartsy projects:

A fellow Island Batik Ambassador, Karen of So Karen-ly Created, linked up her July project featuring Aurifil thread. It’s a terrific wall hanging made from stitching New York Beauty blocks out in the same manner that you might doodle a mandala or a zentangle. I love the effect of all the colours and weights of thread that Karen used. Head over to Karen’s post to read more about her process.

Another fellow Island Batik Ambassador, Denise of For the Love of Geese, also linked up her July project featuring Aurifil thread. It’s another terrific art quilt, this one is created by thread painting over fused appliqué to create a very Victorian-esque design. One piece of brilliance I’d like to point out in Denise’s piece is her use of two threads at once through one needle to increase her colour options.

And last but not least, and for something totally different – Claire at knitNkwilt reported on a series of interesting lessons she is taking to do with design. This week she linked up two small test pieces she stitched out from one of her design exercises. This one was my favourite. Follow the link back to her post, and the links in her post back to her earlier lesson posts to see how this unfolded. Enjoy!

And then it’s your turn!

Tell us – what are you working on, or have recently finished in your sewing room? We want to know so we can visit and be inspired. Link up a blog post, an IG post or simply a photo from your computer.  See if you can get the Chameleon to turn quilted with happiness. We’d love to see your quilting colours!

• Link up your latest or recent quilt/sewing excitement. All quilt construction stages welcome – finished quilts, quilt blocks – even fabric pulls! Or inspiration sources!
• You have 50 characters in the link description…. tell us who you are and what your fantastic project is.
• URL links are not necessary to link up…. non-bloggers 100% welcome! If you don’t have a URL, you can link up with just a photo.
• Take a moment to visit some friends who came to the party – leave a little love and make their day. And a link back to Clever Chameleon is always appreciated.
• Do it now……. before you forget!

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The Chameleon turns rainbow with pleasure when he hears from you. I am more reserved, so I will respond in gratitude by email instead. Now that it’s your turn…. Scroll right to the end, leave me a comment and tell me, what do you think? Thanks for connecting!

Would you like to keep in touch with Clever Chameleon and the fun quilty ideas I design as well as find all over the internet? You can follow directly for email updates, or through Bloglovin’, Pinterest, IG or FB. All your follow options can be found here. Don’t forget to link up all your current quilting projects on Tuesdays at our Colour & Inspiration Linky parties!