Banksia Bonanza: Colour Inspiration Tuesday and Link Party

Welcome to Australian Spring! 

Here in Adelaide the 1st of September is officially Spring. But the signs have been around for a few weeks….. a lot of native plants here flower in late winter before it gets too hot and dry. Likewise, the pesky possum who persistently calls our shed home has been wearing her latest baby on her back for a while now. 

Last weekend we had the opportunity to meet a Filipino lad we helped group-sponsor through university. The meeting was held at the Adelaide Zoo, which of course was bursting with both flora and fauna Spring-ness. The flower above is a banksia planted near the little penguin exhibit. We have about 170 species of banksia in Australia, with an incredible diversity in the plants, leaves and flowers. Plenty of inspiration for a quilt among them, that’s for sure.

Here’s another completely different but also beautiful banksia from near the Australian sea lions…….

Banksia flowers are actually elongated clusters of hundreds to thousands of tiny, relatively insignificant flowers. But together those little flowers pack a large punch! I think there’s something deep in that for the rest of us……

Here’s another couple of moments at the zoo that took my fancy.

A panda up a tree

Not just a little way up a tree either.

This is Funi, Adelaide’s girl panda with attitude. This might go partway to explaining why we have never got that baby panda the breeding program is so desperate for………

And we saw Snowy. Snowy is a white meerkat. She is not albino, she started life brown and still has black eyes and a black nose. One day she just started losing her skin pigment – no one knows why. She has been white for years and is otherwise healthy and normal. I like to think she just likes being a bit different. I foretell an appliqué of some sort to immortalise Snowy one day.

A quick reminder

This is pretty much your last chance to name my quilt from the Island Batik Great Outdoors blog hop and win the equivalent of 48 charm squares of Island Batik fabric. Head over to this post if you have not already entered.  Entries close September 6. The winners will be announced on the 7th.

In related news, the My Happy Place Row-Along blog hop starts today.  Head over to Seams to be Sew to find out all about it and the great prizes on offer. There are lots of free patterns for quilt block rows too, but many of them expire fairly rapidly, so don’t wait until my day on the 20th to visit the earlier posts!

Now, let’s have a look at some quilts brought to our party last Tuesday

First up we have something fun I have been meaning to point out to you for a while…..

Sandra at Musings of a Menopausal Melon – mmm! quilts runs a monthly party called DrEAMi (Drop Everything And Make It). This party celebrates all the quilty squirrels that infest our sewing rooms from time to time. It’s always a great read, because Sandra is Funny. And it is also always full of good links. Because if someone liked a project enough for it to become a squirrel…. well, that is a pretty solid recommendation, right?! Right!

The Chameleon liked Sandra’s DrEAMi cushion and her fabulous quilting this week enough to become a squirrel too. Or would that be a squirreleon to keep Sandra’s squabbit company? Ha, now you’ll have to head over to find out what I’m dribbling on about. You might want to link up here first before you head down that rabbit warren though. Fair warning.

And we had a couple of major milestones met on projects that have been linked to Colour Inspiration Tuesday before while in construction. 

Marie of Octopus Patchwork finished her flagship Octopus quilt and I love it. Marie designed this quilt herself and it is beyond special. I was so glad to see it finished and ready to go to her nephew.

And Denise of For the Love of Geese has been super busy with piecing and quilting lately. Her quilt Vertigo is now at the finished flimsy stage. As if that wasn’t enough, her post also has four quilted finishes in it as well, including her Nostalgia Twist quilt.

My sincerest thanks to everyone who linked up last week. If you were featured you can find a badge of honour here.

Link up to the Chameleon’s  Linky Party and show us your projects, planned or otherwise……

What are you working on, or have recently finished in your sewing room? Link up a blog post, a Flicker pic, 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.

Guidelines (more detail here):

• Link up your latest or recent quilt excitement. All construction stages welcome.
• You have 100 characters in the link description…. tell us who you are and what your fantastic project is.
• URLs are not necessary to link up…. non-bloggers 100% welcome! If you don’t have a URL, simply link up with just a photo. 
• Do it now……. before you forget! Or get distracted by a squirrel…..

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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 or FB. All your follow options can be found here. And don’t forget to link up all your current quilting projects on Tuesdays at our Colour Inspiration Linky parties!

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!