Tips to help with the Beary Colourful BOM if you are a Beginner or don’t FMQ
This will be the last Beary Colourful post for a while (I hope). A few days ago I touched on the question of whether you can do the Beary Colourful BOM if you are a beginner.
Let’s start by saying two important things.
You can do whatever you want! Just because I wouldn’t consider the bears to be a beginner pattern, doesn’t mean that you can’t give it a crack. You won’t know what you can do until you try.
But…. don’t fall out of love with appliqué if the bear poses too much of a challenge at the moment. There are parts of the bear that call for some experience and quilting is definitely not meant to be frustrating.
So, I have come up with a short list of adjustments/tips that you can make if there are parts of the bear that might frustrate you.
Beginners Tips for the Red Bear
Use Batiks
Use batik fabrics for the applique pieces. Batiks have a tighter, finer weave than most quilting cottons and this means they are more fray resistant. They also are dyed right through, which means that any stray threads are less noticeable. Printed fabrics are usually white on the back, so frayed edges show this white and are more obvious. Using batik for raw edge appliqué is a good idea even if you are not a beginner. I have been appliquéing for much of my quilting career, and I only ever compromise on this point for one thing – if I can’t get a batik in the colour I want! Batiks reign supreme for raw edge appliqué. And I would have said this even if I had been refused for the 2018 Island Batik team!
Batiks will give you the edge….. boom, boom! 🙂
Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff
Don’t do the tiny details. Delete the butterfly’s spots, and the shine on the nose. Or add them with a few hand stitches instead.
Substitute the appliquéd eyes for felt circles or buttons. Just promise me you won’t do this if you plan to gift the quilt to a child under 3 years old. Choking hazards should always be a primary consideration if you are making quilts for young children and babies. And always sew buttons on very securely and check them periodically. Drawing the eyes on with a permanent fabric texta is a good option if the quilt is for a very young child and you wish to avoid appliquéing the eyes. I have provided a positioning guide for the eyes in the beginners’ pdf if you choose to use buttons (or safety eyes).
I don’t have any really suitable buttons on hand today, but you could explore the huge variety of buttons out there for fantastic bear eyes.
Use a Normal Sewing Stitch, not Free Motion Stitching
Sew the appliqué down with a wide sewing machine stitch such as zigzag or blanket stitch. This should be relatively straightforward if you have removed the hair spikes and eliminated the impossibly small pieces. And sew slowly.
A sample of blanket stitch around raw edge appliqué
Take a deep breath and believe you can!
I think they are all the suggestions I would like to make. If you can think of more beginner’s tips please add them in the comments – that would be very helpful. 🙂
If you haven’t done a lot of raw edge appliqué before I hope you will still give the bears a go. It’s going to be a very fun quilt.
OMG! OMG! OMG! My first One Monthly Goal for 2018 and my very exciting OMG moment!
Well, January 2018 has me looking forward to a lot of things.
But everything paled (briefly) in light of some great news I received this morning.
I got up to find an email waiting, saying that I have been accepted as an Island Batik Ambassador for 2018! To say that I’m excited about this is a huge understatement. I admire so many of last year’s ambassadors…. now I get to play along!
Once I have calmed down a little, this is what January’s plans look like for me:
I have some secret sewing to do to finish the Blue Bear for the Beary Colourful BOM by February. But I can’t share that, because it is, well….. secret…. It is cute though, tee hee.
And I am joining in the Regatta Quilt sew along at Home Sewn by Us. But I can’t nominate that for my OMG, because it is supposed to be NO pressure. You can join us though. I am going to use a jelly roll that my good friend Romana gave me a loooong time ago. I have never settled on what to do with this jelly roll – it comes out, and goes away again periodically. Bu it will be great for this quilt. And it matches the colours in an old favourite t-shirt of my daughter’s which is now too small to wear and too damaged to pass on. She is sentimental about this shirt after having worn it to death. So I am going to use the pandas and the jelly roll scraps to make a throw pillow. to go with the quilt.
Here is the jelly roll that I am going to use for the Regatta Quilt and an old t-shirt of my daughter’s that is going to be the centre of a co-ordinating throw pillow.
And I have a UFO that I need to finish…. do you remember when I said I have 13 UFOs….. well, I did a bit of sorting in the sewing room yesterday, and that number has blown out to 15. Two UFOs I had completely forgotten about! But no matter, one of those only needs the binding finished. So I am going to fix that and gift it. But that’s not really a month-worthy goal, is it?
So, My One Monthly Goal for January
I have decided that I need to get on with one of my yearly goals right from the get-go. Which is to continue with some charity quilting. Since I currently have a charity quilt in my possession, I am going to nominate it as my January OMG. To be quilted, and the binding sewn on, by the 31st Jan!
Apples and Roses and Autumn leaves charity quilt
That’s it! Short and Sweet. Tomorrow I will endeavour to get my recommendations to beginners regarding the Beary Colourful BOM posted. Then I am taking a well earned break. Til Tuesday I think. If you are new here – I normally only post here twice a week, three times if there is a lot going on….. but on the scale of “goings on”s, the Beary Colourful BOM has been huge! It will settle down soon.
What are you working on this month? Let us know at Elm Street Quilts by nominating a goal. You could win some fantastic prizes, and you will get some extra motivation to finish that project, or finish a step on a project. You can nominate as much or as little as you wish!
How to put together the Red Bear of New Beginnings
One of the techniques I have done a lot since I learned to free motion quilt is raw edge free motion appliqué. Primarily because free motion appliqué is the fastest form of appliqué I know. And for me, currently, fast is good……. I have young kids and an often travelling husband…..
But there is also another reason…. I have found that free motion appliqué is a great way to improve my free motion skills for quilting. The act of tracing around a shape several times in a row. then another shape, and another shape (and so on) has definitely helped with my FMQ confidence and accuracy.
So, if you are still working on your free motion quilting skills and don’t do raw edge free motion appliqué yet, you might just want to give it a go. Here’s how to do it, using the Red Bear Block from the Beary Colourful BOM as an example.
What you will need to make the Red Bear appliqué block
Before we get started, if you haven’t got the Red Bear of New Beginnings pattern yet, you can download it here from yesterday’s blog post. Reminder: if you are a beginner and don’t want to jump in the deep end, I will share a slightly simplified pattern later this week once I have the all main instructions posted.
Here is also a brief reiteration of everything you will need to make the Red Bear block. If you require more detail, this list was covered more fully yesterday.
Background fabric 13.5″ by 17″
Thin batting for trapunto 11″ x 15″.
Fusible paper-backed fabric adhesive (for example vliesofix). 15″ x 24″
Red fabric scraps for the main sections of the bear. The whole bear requires the equivalent of 6″ x 24″ of red fabric.
White/light colour fabric scraps for the muzzle and tummy, 5″ x 8″. Or 10″ x 8″ if you would like to make the light fabrics double layered.
Various coloured small fabric scraps for eyes, nose, mouth, paws, inner ears and tummy motif appliqué shapes.
Machine embroidery or sewing threads to match your appliqué fabrics
General tools: sewing machine, iron etc, teflon ironing sheet or baking paper, small sharp scissors, pencil, chalk/washout fabric marker, quilting pins, black permanent fabric marker, curved blade embroidery snips, greaseproof paper.
Where to start
Step 1
First, print out your appliqué templates. Pay attention to the size of the check box on the printout. It is actually really important that this box is square. If it is not square, then all sorts of bad things will happen. I.e. your pieces won’t all overlap, your bear will be misshapen and rain will fall on your nearly dry washing….. just kidding about that last one, but the other two consequences are 100% true.
Step 2
Choose whether you are making the Butterfly Bear or the Beetle Bear and tape together the large outline of the entire bear. This is a placement guide to build your bear appliqué over later. Put it aside.
Step 3
Now, from the appliqué pieces pattern sheets (the first 5 pages of the Red Bear pattern) trace your appliqué shapes onto the paper side of your fusible fabric adhesive. The pieces are already reversed to give you a bear that faces the same way as my sample. The arrows indicate the top of each piece. Leave space between the tracings so that you can cut out the pieces with 1/8th inch or slightly more excess paper around them.
Step 4
Red Bear pieces fused onto my scrap of red batik
Fuse each traced piece to the back of your chosen fabric, according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Protect your iron by covering your work with an non-stick ironing sheet or baking paper – the really shiny kind that is used for lining cookie baking trays. Carefully cut out each fused shape on the traced line. Cut the centre out of the “outer tummy” shape, so you get a tummy doughnut.
Here’s the baking paper I use for appliqué. I save the cheap stuff for cooking with…… 🙂
Building the Appliqué for the Red Bear Block
Step 5
Lay your bear outline face up on your ironing board and cover it with a see-through teflon ironing sheet or baking paper, I have an ironing sheet (somewhere) but I had to use baking paper because it is lost. I did mention that taking control of my sewing space is a 2018 goal.….. Actually I like using baking paper for this step, because I can happily stick pins through the baking paper and the template into my ironing board, and nothing moves.
Step 6
Peel the paper backing off your appliqué pieces. If you can get them off in one piece, save the backing paper pieces from the left foot, both arms, the tummy, muzzle and head (otherwise you will just have to trace them again later – no biggy).
Place the arms, legs and outer ears into position and tack each down with a quick touch of the iron. If anything moves out of place carefully peel it off the baking paper and try again.
First layer of the red bear appliqué temporarily adhered to baking paper.
Step 7
Join up all the limbs by adding the outer tummy ring over the top.
Step 8
Now add the inner ears over the outer ears and lightly press. Notice that the edges of the outer ear and the inner ear pieces are slightly offset? This creates a gradual decrease in layers under the head, and prevents a pronounced bump forming on the head at the edge of the ear pieces.
Step 9
Now add the main head section and the feet, overlapping the already placed pieces.
Step 10
Add the tummy centre and muzzle. If you wish to make the white areas double layered, now is the time to do that (use fusible adhesive to stick two layers of fabric together before you cut out the white shapes).
Upper picture shows muzzle with one layer of white fabric. Lower picture has two layers of fabric on the muzzle.
Step 11
Add the whites of the eyes, the irises, the nose, mouth and paws. You most likely will not be able to see the position guidelines through your appliqué now, with the possible exception of the white areas. You can position your pieces by eye, or if you want them placed exactly, you can use the following trick:
Take the saved backing papers from your appliqué pieces (or trace new shapes on tracing paper if the originals tore during the removal process). Move your bear (still on the baking paper) off the appliqué positioning guide. Use the guide to trace the positions of the paws, facial features and tummy motif onto the backing papers.
This arm backing paper now has the paw location marked on it
Align the marked backing paper over the corresponding part of your bear appliqué. For instance, this arm backing paper now has the position of the paw marked on it. Gently slide the paw piece in under the arm backing paper until the paw piece is aligned with the paw outline on the backing paper. Press to fix the paw in place.
Align paw under backing paper and iron down
Actually, you can see this process better with an eye…..
White eye piece aligned under marked backing paper
Repeat with two remaining paws and the facial features.
Bear face all assembled
Step 12 – Butterfly motif
Add the butterfly motif. The butterfly construction follows the same method as the paws and face (step 11).
Butterfly appliqué assembled
Step12a – Beetle motif
To do the beetle, use your favourite marking method (chalk, pencil, washout pen, greaseprroof paper) to mark out the beetle’s legs. Then either: use the permanent fabric marker to draw the beetle’s legs. Or, if you are confident with FMQ, you can thread paint the legs in a later step (and go straight to step 14 now).
If you have drawn the legs on, you can now add the beetle body. If you wish to thread paint the legs, leave the beetle body off.
Step 13
Mark the pupils with the permanent fabric pen. I thread paint over these later, but you could leave them as is, or hand embroider them instead.
Add small details with permanent marker
Step 14
Once you are happy that all of your pieces are in place, give the appliqué a thorough pressing to adhere all the pieces together. Once it has cooled, your appliqué should peel off the baking paper in one large piece.
Lay the bear onto the centre of your block background fabric and iron down.
Step 15
Lay the whole block over the polyester batting and pin into place with a few quilting pins around the bear.
Pin the polyester batting under the bear. Make sure the whole bear is sitting over batting.
Step 16
Set your machine up as you would for free motion quilting.
Starting with the white areas, sew straight stitch around the edge of every piece to secure the appliqué. If your quilt is to be a wall hanging, one or two rounds of stitching around each raw edge will suffice. However, if you would like to make this as a bed quilt to be used and loved, stitch around each appliqué piece 4 or 5 times.
White appliqué areas stitched down with free motion straight stitch
Step 16a
If you are thread painting the beetle legs, do these next. I used my favourite marking method….. drawing onto greaseproof paper and stitching around the outline. You can find out more about this method here.
Marking out the beetle legs with greaseproof paperOnce the outline is stitched, remove the paper before you colour in the shapes.Thread paint in the legs and antennaeThread painting all done
Press the beetle body into place. It will hide the travel stitching between each appendage.
Press on the remaining beetle parts
Step 17
Free motion stitch around all the remaining raw edges as for the white areas in Step 16.
Don’t forget to add a few stitches of white to give his nose some shine. And of course, thread paint or embroider the pupils.
Step 18
Remove the safety pins. Turn your finished work over and carefully cut away the batting just outside the perimeter of the bear. Take care not cut your fabric or stitching, just the batting!! Curved embroidery scissors work wonderfully for this job. The result is padding left behind the bear, so that the bear will be a greater thickness than the surrounding quilt. For those who have never heard of trapunto, that is exactly what this is.
The back of your appliqué should look something like thisAll excess batting cut away.
Once the excess batting has been removed your red bear block is done! Fabulous!
If you have any trouble with the pattern please let me know. And don’t forget to link up a photo with Jen’s linky party at the end of January.
Then hold tight for the Blue Bear of February.
And to finish off, I didn’t forget that it is Tuesday…… and the first Colour Inspiration Tuesday of the year, no less! I do admit that this past week has been a bit manic getting the Beary Colourful BOM up and running, so there has been no time for my usual dose of wandering creative thoughts….. so we will simply take this opportunity to celebrate the colours of the Butterfly Bear of New Beginnings. Happy Colour Inspiration Tuesday!!
Don’t want to miss a bear in the Beary Colourful BOM? You can follow my blog directly for email updates, or through Bloglovin’. Sneak peeks of next month’s bear will also appear throughout the year at Clever Chameleon Quilting on Facebook. All your follow options can be found here.
It’s finally time to meet the Red Bear of New Beginnings! Welcome to the Beary Colourful BOM!
Happy New Year!!!! May 2018 be full of blessings and peace and success for you!
Today is the day! A new year. New goals. And the first episode in two intertwined projects that will run all year. The 2018 Monthly Color Challenge and the Beary Colourful Quilt BOM.
I have been looking forward to this day for several months. This project is all thanks to Jen Shaffer of Patterns by Jen. For each month of 2018, Jen has chosen a colour and is releasing a pattern for a pieced block in that colour. Over the 12 months there will be 12 blocks in 12 colours to produce a rainbow quilt. The first block for Jen Shaffer’s quilt is available for free at Jen’s blog right now. This is the first block that you can download from Patterns with Jen:
How the Monthly Color Challenge will work
Jen has invited a small group of bloggers to help with her 2018 Monthly Color Challenge. So at the beginning of each month, there will be a blog hop to inspire you with different projects in the allocated colour. This month, to start things off, there are six other bloggers participating in the Red Challenge Blog Hop. There is myself – I will get to what we are doing for the challenge here at Clever Chameleon in a moment. And then there are five other fabulous quilters.
Not only has Jen put together a free rainbow BOM for you, and lined up half a dozen other quilters to help inspire you, but she has organised prizes as well!!
Every month, in the last week of the month, Patterns by Jen will have a linky party especially for people who have participated in the monthly colour challenge. You can link up one project per month in the colour of the month. Your link can be Jen’s block, something you have made from one of the other Challenge Blog Hop participants or something completely original. As long as your creation is made predominantly in the nominated colour. You can participate in as many or as few of the monthly parties as you wish.
Every month there will be a prize drawn randomly from the links in the linky party. January’s linky will be open at Patterns by Jen from Jan 24 – Jan 31, and a winner will be chosen on Feb 1st. January’s prize is sponsored by Northcott and is a set of 2.5″ strips….. win this and you’ll be all set for June’s challenge! 🙂
And…. every linky party that you enter will also give you one entry for the Grand Prize. Which is to have a quilt top quilted by Jen of Dizzy Quilter! There are a few details you should know about this prize, but winning this would be a serious coup.
That’s all fantastic. But I’m here for the Red Bear!
Indeed. We should definitely get on now to what’s happening for Jen’s Monthly Color Challenge here at Clever Chameleon.
Every month of 2018 I am going to make an appliqué bear in Jen’s nominated colour. And for the duration of the Color Challenge I am also making the patterns available to you so that you can make them too. Together these 12 bears will form the blocks of a rainbow bear quilt suitable for a single (twin)-size bed.
So without further ado, I present to you, the Red Bear of New Beginnings. New Year’s Red Ted is celebrating fresh starts and the courage to try new things. He is stepping out with the intention of improving something or discovering something. 2018 is his year!
The Red Bear has a butterfly on his tummy to remind him to never fear new beginnings or be ashamed to change his path for the better.
Or he has a beetle on his tum…..
This month I have pulled out all the stops and given you two options for the motif on the Red Bear’s tummy. Most months there will only be a single pattern, but the first month is special, right? And perhaps there are children out there who would rather something less fluttery on their quilt than a butterfly. So I thought very hard, and decided that beetles start as grubs, pupate and then emerge as spectacular flying insects. So why should butterflies always get the glory as the poster child for change and renewal? Beetles do a complete metamorphosis too .
So, the other Red Bear has a beetle on his tummy, also to remind him to never fear new beginnings or be ashamed to change his path for the better.
No this is not a bugbear, despite my DH’s quick wit!
The beetle/butterfly choice is all yours. Of course, you can abandon both the butterfly and the beetle and put anything you like on your bear’s tummy if you wish.
How to get the Red Bear Appliqué Pattern?
Sorry, this free pattern download has expired…. it will be available for purchase in due course. Perhaps you would like to join the free 2019 Love with a Twist BOM here instead!
Further to the pattern file, the fabric and notion requirements for the Red Bear block are at the end of this post. The technique I used to make my bear is free motion raw edge appliqué. If you are already proficient at free motion raw edge appliqué you should need very little further guidance to create your Red Bear.
If you do need more help, I will be posting further instructions and tips to supplement the pdf pattern over the next few days (Update: done!). This current post is already mammoth enough! Also, some instructions will be applicable to every bear and will serve us better over the year if they can be accessed directly, not buried in this post.
However, there are a few things I want to discuss with you right up front.
I am going to trapunto each of my bear appliqués.
This makes the fusible appliqué less flat and dimensionless. It also means that I do not need to use a stabiliser (stabilizer) while I am stitching the appliqué. Because the trapunto layer is also my stabiliser.
Stabiliser, you say?! For some choices of machine-stitched appliqué techniques, the fusible webbing and multiple layers of fabric in raw edge appliqué are sufficient to keep your work flat. However, if you are finding that your stitching is pulling at your design and distorting your work, you will need to use a stabiliser to keep your appliqué flat. Here is a good review of stabilisers.
But may I just recommend the trapunto?
I am a beginner and/or I don’t free motion stitch. Can I do the Beary Colourful BOM?
Of course! You may want to wait a couple of days to get started though. I am preparing a blog post (update: done!) to cover some minor adjustments to the block that will make the bear simpler. These adjustments will be particularly helpful if you do not wish to use free motion straight stitching to secure your appliqué. Free motion stitching allows you to easily appliqué very small pieces and around very tight corners. Some of the corners and small pieces in the original pattern may send you balmy if you try to secure them with more traditional appliqué stitches such as zigzag or blanket stitch.
I prefer needle-turn/hand-stitched appliqué. Can I do the Beary Colourful BOM?
Certainly, if you are independent. You will need to know how to add your own seam allowances to the pattern, as this pattern is designed as a raw-edge appliqué pattern. You may also want to follow the simplification guidelines to deal with unrealistically small details. Beyond that – I don’t do hand appliqué so I can’t offer you any further knowledgeable help.
Where are we headed?
You are welcome to set your bear blocks into a quilt top however you like. But, I know some people/groups are looking at this quilt as a charity quilt option (good on you!) and I thought it may be helpful to lay out my intentions for a simple quick finish after you have laboured over all the blocks. My current intention is to finish the Beary Colourful Quilt off very simply by adding sashing between the blocks, followed by a plain border. The bear blocks will finish at 12″ by 15.5″.
If you add jelly-roll (2″ finished) strips between the blocks, 4″ wide side borders and 6″ wide top and bottom borders, the final size of this quilt will be 48″ by 80″. This will fit on top of a single (twin) bed with 5-6″ overhang on each side and at the bottom. Increasing the sashing widths a little will get more overhang.
I intend to do February’s blue bear in dark blues, which will leave light blue unrepresented in the quilt and a perfect candidate for the sashing colour.
What you will need to make the Red Bear block
Fabric for the background of the block. Each bear block will require a base fabric square of at least 13.5″ by 17″ to allow leeway for trimming. I used a light-grey tone on tone print and a similar batik for my two Red Bear blocks. You should be able to get 3 blocks across the WOF of most quilting-weight cotton fabrics.
Thin batting for the trapunto layer. I use a polyester batting of 1/8th inch loft that I buy by the yard at my local quilt shop. The red bear requires a trapunto batting square of approximately 11″ x 15″.
Fusible paper-backed fabric adhesive (for example vliesofix). 15″ x 24″ will be ample for the red bear.
Red fabric scraps for the main sections of the bear. The whole bear requires the equivalent of 6″ x 24″ of red fabric. But he is built from pieces, so you can use multiple smaller scraps if you wish.
White/light colour fabric scraps for the muzzle and tummy, 5″ x 8″. If shadowing bothers you (when fabrics show through the layer above slightly) you may wish to cut two each of the muzzle and tummy pieces and make these sections out of two layers of fabric. Then you will need 10″ x 8″ of white/light fabric.
Shadowing…. the bear on the left has two layers of white fabric on his muzzle, the bear on the right has only one layer. Some red can be seen underneath the muzzle of the bear on the right.. Honestly, kids will NOT care.
Various coloured small fabric scraps for eyes, nose, mouth, paws, inner ears and tummy motif appliqué shapes.
Machine embroidery or sewing threads to match your appliqué fabrics (I used rayons for a little shine, but cottons are prefered if you are securing with only a single round of stitching)
General tools: sewing machine, iron etc, teflon ironing sheet or baking paper, small sharp scissors, pencil, chalk/washout fabric marker, quilting pins, black permanent fabric marker
Optional but helpful: curved blade embroidery snips and a furry friend to sit on your mending pile to provide guilt-free sewing time. Thanks Mew!
P.S. Have you liked Clever Chameleon on Facebook? That is where you will get your first glimpses of the Blue Bear of High Hopes before February!
P.P.S This is the first full scale pattern I have produced for online download. Should you have issues with this pattern, I would be grateful for your assistance in reporting problems so I can correct them and learn for next time. Thanks!!
Don’t want to miss a bear in the Beary Colourful BOM? You can follow my blog directly for email updates, or through Bloglovin’. Sneak peeks of next month’s bear will also appear throughout the year at Clever Chameleon Quilting on Facebook. All your follow options can be found here.
For me, 2017 was the Year of the Steep Learning Curve. This year I had the privilege of adding a HandiQuilter Sweet Sixteen to my sewing room and starting a quilt blog – this blog. Both events have had their moments, but overall the journey this year has been marvellous! I would like to sincerely thank my dear hubby for his support in freeing up the time and finances to do both.
The Birth of Clever Chameleon Quilting
Clever Chameleon has just celebrated its 8 month blogiversary. Like a new baby, or an intense new romantic relationship, the passage of time on my blog is still being counted in months. Actually, come to think of it, a new blog is a lot like a new baby, or that intense relationship. All consuming, all hoping, no guarantees. Ecstatic joy, hard work, late nights, and those days where you just have no idea what you’ve done wrong! I hope that means with the passage of time this blog will also grow, mature, and become easier to care for!
In many ways I feel like I am still finding my voice, and my place in the quilt blogosphere. But I have discovered that I love blogging and sharing my quilting ideas. The planning and accountability that comes with blogging helps me focus in my sewing room. I have definitely become more productive. And I have also found connecting with other bloggers to be extraordinarily rewarding, even more so than I’d anticipated. Thank you to all who have reached out over the past 8 months and I eagerly anticipate some new and deepened connections in 2018. And thank you to all you amazing readers who have chosen to follow the Clever Chameleon in these early days….. The fact that there is over 150 of you now (WordPress + email + Bloglovin’) is so exciting!
My Five Best Posts of 2017
Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs is hosting a party for everyone to nominate their best 5 posts for 2017. I think this is a brilliant idea. It is extremely interesting to see what other quilt bloggers personally liked from their own blogging journeys of 2017. And as a reader, it’s a really efficient way to discover new blogs and like-minded people!
I have chosen my Five Best Posts on a variety of merits….. so let’s start with the easiest to measure…..
The Most Read Blog Post on Clever Chameleon in 2017
My pick for the blog post that brought me the most joy has to be my contribution to the 2017 Ornament Exchange hosted by Erlene of My Pinterventures. In the end, everything pretty much boils down to a sense of community and connection, doesn’t it? The reason why this post stands out so much for me (while it may possibly not excite you so much!), is that I was very blessed with my allocated blog hop partner. Evija of From Evija with Love was a very kind and enthusiastic swap partner who sent me two lovely ornaments. I very much enjoyed designing this drum ornament especially for her.
The Blog Post that Taught me the Most
For this category I cannot name just one post, but I will nominate the first post of a very intense series of posts: 31 Days of Everyday Inspiration for Quilts. I decided at the very last minute to participate in an event I had never previously heard of, called “Write 31 Days”. It is an annual challenge to write a blog post everyday for the entirety of October. Since Paul and I were working away from home in Vanuatu for 2 weeks of October I thought this might be a good replacement for the lack of sewing. I learnt a lot about my capacity/limit for blogging in these 31 days. Near the end of this series I remember truly beginning to feel comfortable with my “own blogging voice”.
The “Defining Moment” Blog Post
I started the Clever Chameleon blog because I wanted to share my love for designing and colour and quilting more broadly than I can in real life. Only a very few of my in-the-flesh friends quilt.
Once I got started with the blog, I quickly decided to try a weekly colour inspiration slot to share my delight in playing with colours….. The very first of these was Butterfly Loves Red., way back on 23rd May (about a month after Clever Chameleon went live). Since then we have had almost 60 Colour Inspiration colour boards, many of which have been associated with quilt design ideas. Some of these ideas will eventually get made. Others have had their day and Colour Inspiration Tuesday got them out of my system. Either way, I enjoy my colour Inspiration explorations, and I hope you do too. But it all started with Butterfly loves Red.
And finally……
The Post(s) with the Most Persistent Reader Engagement
Two posts from 2017 have consistently and persistently drawn reader visits ever since they were published. They have performed equally well, and cover very similar topics, so I have lumped them here together. They are Bugs and Gardens and Strawberry Vines. Both are tutorials for casual, free-motion quilting designs that I designed for use on children’s and charity quilts. I like these designs because they add interest to the quilt, they can be stitched quickly without requiring any marking, and they leave plenty of empty space to keep the quilts soft and usable for everyday.
So, that is my view of Clever Chameleon since I published my first blog post on the 26th April. Overall, 2017 concludes for me with a sense of accomplishment and healthy pride in a once-very-daunting task done to the best of my ability. And I have lots of optimism for 2018. Which leads me to my bonus pick…..
The Post that is currently generating the Most Excitement
In two days the 2018 Monthly Color Challenge at Patterns by Jen kicks off. Which means I will release the first pattern for the Beary Colourful Quilt BOM as well. The lead up to this event has been very exciting, with lots of new followers coming onboard and my facebook page finally being launched. I have been putting out some sneak peeks on facebook for this event, which I will continue to do throughout the year, so if you like sneak peeks and haven’t liked Clever Chameleon on FB yet, you may wish to do so.
And speaking of two days time…… 2018, here we come! So, to wrap up this post I will quickly reflect on what I would like to achieve for 2018. I am not really a planning-in-detail sort of person, but I do have some things I would like to move ahead with next year. And it is always helpful to write them down and solidify them.
Quilting Goals
This is probably the thing I want to achieve most of all in my sewing room. I want to finish 2018 with less UFOs than I started with. Simple. I have actually been chicken to confront this issue, as my UFOs have been weighing on my mind in a sort of shadowy, ominous way . I seriously hate wastage. But like most fears, it has turned out less bad than I expected. I actually did a count the other day and I have 13 significant UFOs – I tell you the weight of these on my conscience, it felt more like 130. I also have materials or part materials for 6 mythical quilts and I’d like to move some of these into production also.
So, specifically pertaining to the UFO situation – I would like to finish one new quilt for my daughter. And one quilt for our bed. I have started two of the latter and never finished any! Yup, I don’t own a quilt for my own bed. Ummm.
I will continue charity quilting this year. One every two months should be doable – I actually managed 5 quilts in 6 months this year. I only do the quilting on these charity quilts, other members of the charity group piece and pin the quilts before I get them.
Design and run two BOM quilt along projects. One is well and truly happening – the Beary Colourful BOM starting Monday. The second, a joint project with Joy of Days Filled with Joy, is in the works. We are working towards a house BOM called Homes Full of Fun, and it should be a blast. Stay tuned for more about that one.
Becoming More Professional Goals
In 2018 I want to develop my blog further. This year I have not made any attempt to get my blog paying for itself. Fun, yes! But sadly not a sustainable situation. Now that I am more comfortable with blogging, I will be more actively looking for financially rewarding relationships that also add value to my blog for my readers. Part of this will mean jumping into the world of affiliate links, of course I will let you know when I do that. And it is important to me that Clever Chameleon stays true to itself, so rest assured, there will be no sudden barrage of tacky advertising.
My website will always be a living changing thing, but I need to specifically find time in the new year to make older content on my website more accessible – in 2018 I will be adding new menu lists for important posts, such as tutorials and BOMs.
I need to stop procrastinating and write up some of my patterns for publication and/or sale on Etsy/Craftsy. I know that the first one is the hardest, and that once I start the dam will likely break. So, 2018 is the year to get started and formally publish something! Hold me accountable, please!
In 2018 I will also take back my sewing room! It is time I treated this space more like a professional work space, which means some serious tidying up. I let it get bad when some deadlines got too tight, and of course, now it takes too long to find stuff.
And I want to Continue what I’ve Started Goals
Maintain at least 2 blog posts most weeks, including Colour Inspiration Tuesdays.
Continue writing regular free tutorials on small projects and quilting motifs.
So that is that for Clever Chameleon for 2017. I hope you have had a good year, but if not, that 2018 will be a big improvement for you. And I hope to see you all at the Monthly Color Challenge launch on Monday!
P.S. I’ll be linking this post up with the 2018 Planning Party at Quilting JETgirl as well as with the Best of 2017 at Meadow Mist Design.
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This will be the last Beary Colourful post for a while (I hope). A few days ago I touched on the question of whether you can do the Beary Colourful BOM if you are a beginner.
Take a deep breath and believe you can! 
That’s it! Short and Sweet. Tomorrow I will endeavour to get my recommendations to beginners regarding the 
Indeed. We should definitely get on now to what’s happening for Jen’s Monthly Color Challenge here at Clever Chameleon.
Optional but helpful: curved blade embroidery snips and a furry friend to sit on your mending pile to provide guilt-free sewing time. Thanks Mew!
Clever Chameleon has just celebrated its 8 month blogiversary. 
