Blog - Page 10 of 72 - Clever Chameleon Quilting

April 14, 2020January 19, 2024

Butterflies for a change! Colour & Inspiration Tuesday

Caper White Butterfly colour board at Clever Chameleon

A little bit of Outback Autumn to brighten your day, and some quilt progress at last!

There is a sense that nature is stirring around us here at Arkaroola…. The heat is tailing off with the arrival of autumn, and some of the benefits from the rain two months ago remain. In particular, flowers that germinated and butterflies that bred in response to the rain in February are now reaching maturity. More birds are appearing around our house area now too, especially the bug-eating Willy Wagtails and some finches.

And the nightly moth cabaret at our windows never plays the same show twice. Checking on the visitors at the windows each night has become somewhat of a hobby for me…. a shared interest with the Chameleon, if you like. Although I must add, our motivations are a little divergent….. I am more “Team Moth” than “Team Lizard”. Notably, my team does not always win.

gecko with moth — Hey! I was trying to get a photo of that mo…….. Oh, never mind.

Been a bit AWOL from the blog, but still plugging along

Many thanks to those caring souls who have checked in lately. For the last few weeks I feel like I have had writer’s block, creative block… all sorts of blocks. Life was too hectic, and then the school term finished early with not much notice. All the things I hate so much (like alarm clocks and fighting over year 4 grammar) went away really suddenly. Yay! But so did my schedule. Boo! So much more time and so much less motivation….. I’m sure many of you can relate. If not, you are likely one of the essential role darlings (thank you) whom the rest of us bunnies wish we could do more to help than just stay out of your way.

Anyway, whether you are staying at home or are working flat out, I hope you managed to have some happy moments over Easter. I can’t remember the last Easter when I didn’t see my brother and his family, but it was OK. In fact, Easter was somehow a turning point for me…. I don’t know if it was the egg hunt with the kids, the bonfire in the evening, or a chocolate overload, but on Sunday I suddenly emerged from the low grade mental fog that’s been slowing me up lately. My enthusiasm is back and the circus will go on. Ha!

I have finally got back into my sewing space after just not feeling like it for so long. I have even made some significant progress on my Chinese New Year quilt….. what a ridiculous subject for a quilt that has turned out to be for the moment, bahahaha. The Chameleon has just about wet himself laughing a few times over the notion of celebrating 2020 so far. But I am committed, and perhaps many good things will still come out of the Year of the Rat yet. A year of reflection and change and (re)-discovering our strengths, maybe. Or maybe it will just be a case of “I survived the great toilet paper shortage of 2020 and all I got was this ~~lousy t-shirt~~ quilt”….

At least we’ll get the quilt! 😀

March 24, 2020January 19, 2024

The Chameleon and Claude are Checking In

Claude the Cockatoo colour scheme at Clever Chameleon

The World’s as Crazy as a bored Cockatoo…..

Well! How the world can change in just two weeks!

Just double checking…. yup, it’s only been two weeks since my last post. It certainly feels like an age, doesn’t it? Life has flipped on its head a bit since then.

Last week, my family went to our once-a-term face-to-face school event for my kids’ School of the Air. I’ll admit: I second guessed the wisdom of it the whole time as the coronavirus situation worsened. Which made it quite stressful. Now we are thankfully home again, and essentially barricaded in within the (considerable) boundaries of the wildlife sanctuary we call home. Arkaroola as a tourist destination has stopped accepting guests as of yesterday and staff/residents who go off site now will be required to self-isolate on return. So I am cancelling everything except online schooling, blogging, chatting via email, sewing and exploring the wilderness in my immediate proximity. I feel fortunate…. it’s pretty much what I signed up for in 2020 anyway. We are disappointed not to be hosting friends/family in the coming months of course, and worried for everyone too, but we are also mindful that counting our blessings is much easier for us than for many people.

How are you?

So today I am just really checking in to check up on you. I hope you are well and safe and comfortable, and can stay that way. If you are confined, I hope that you have a long sewing list to keep you occupied, and a variety of other interests. If you are ill, I wish you mild symptoms and a speedy recovery. And that’s pretty much all I am going to say about the coronavirus situation unless things change dramatically. Not because I don’t care. But rather, because I do. The news gets depressing and scary if you follow too much. Life is difficult for many at the moment. And so some of the things we really need now are friendship, laughter and a little light relief. There are many things I can’t do for you, but this one thing I can. And you can do it for me too. We can stay positively connected online.

Coming home tonight after dinner, this is what I saw. It seems the Chameleon has already committed to keeping in contact with everyone. He has upgraded our satellite internet connection to colour. Excellent!

Soooo…. clearly, the Chameleon is putting his ~~hand~~ leg up to continue being the light entertainment for now. A coronavirus-free zone of “normality”. One place where you can come with your cuppa to be distracted for 5 minutes, and protect your mental health…. So sit back, and let us crazies here remain slightly unhinged to keep you sane!

March 10, 2020January 19, 2024

Weeds, Frogs and a little Lunarcy

Little Arkaroola Frog colour board at Clever Chameleon

Everything grows like weeds after summer rain!

Including the weeds. This week we have been madly helping out with weed control around the Arkaroola village. It’s a crucial few days where the weeds are big enough to easily identify amongst all the beneficial plants, but haven’t started dropping seed yet. The window of opportunity is short, and for the Bindii is almost shut already.

Between that, and schooling, I have still managed a little sightseeing and a little sewing. It helps that we had a public holiday yesterday to get a few things done. I’ve got all my Lunar New Year animal appliqués cut out. And a flimsy sewn, ready to put them on.

And apart from the one, lonely boatman bug next to the frog in our colour board, there are no creepy crawlies in this week’s post. You might not have guessed it from last week, but there is actually a bit more to the Outback than bugs and flies!

March 3, 2020January 19, 2024

Arkaroola Time Warp: Colour & Inspiration Tuesday

Arkaroola sunset colours at Clever Chameleon

Time is a bit Weird in the Outback

I know this can happen anywhere, but it seems to me that Arkaroola is in the grip of some strange sort of time warp phenomenon thingy. I work really hard, do and see so many things and yet time stands still. Nothing changes, every day is the same. But then I find that the calendar has skipped an entire month….. and everything has changed while I was looking but not noticing. And it still feels like no time has passed….

But it must have, because I have finally done some sewing. Lunarcy is coming your way very soon! If I don’t go batty first from the flies first, that is ….. yuck!

February 25, 2020January 19, 2024

Just add water: Colour & Inspiration Tuesday

Australian Native Orange colour board at Clever Chameleon

The desert was only sleeping

I have been into the Australian Outback many times in the last 20 years, but this unique environment never fails to amaze me. It is resilient and diverse, and just because everything is bone dry, it doesn’t mean that everything is dead. On the contrary – when the conditions are right…… BAM! Life emerges from places and in forms you wouldn’t believe! Two nights ago I saw what looked like an ant that was only about 1/4 inch long, but with an antennae over an inch in length. It was investigating around about itself in an action very much like a blind person using a white cane. Curious company in the ladies’ room here, that’s for sure!

Anyway, you’ll hopefully remember that drought-stricken Arkaroola, where I currently live, received a large amount of rain about 3 weeks ago. Not enough to break the drought, but enough for a reprieve. And while I was disappointed not to be here when it fell, the runner-up’s prize is being able to stay here long enough to see the landscape respond to the water that fell, before the dryness resumes. Let me show you some of the interesting things that are appearing.

And then, I can show you, I’ve also added water to my new Island Batik fabrics. They are all washed and ironed, and poised to start on our Lunarcy New Year Quilt prototype. Here’s hoping that BAM! – that quilt top will appear quite quickly now that those conditions are right too!