Colour Inspiration Tuesday: Aurora Star

Colour Inspiration Tuesday: From colour scheme to quilt block and beyond!

I love green and purple together. Always have, although I have not really given it any particular thought before. They look so strong and comfortable together, complementing and magnifying each other without competing. And it is a generous, welcoming colour scheme…. in that you can add in other colours without making a hideous mess (usually).

But until recently it flummoxed me why this is so. They are not complementary colours. They are two parts of a triadic colour scheme, the third ingredient of which is orange. But quite honestly, purple and green can sing together without orange. Helen Godden, one of my all time favourite Australian quilt artists, shared a comment on facebook recently that helped make sense of the brilliance of purple and green. She says “It’s a well balanced combo. Both green and purple are blue (primary) based, one has yellow (primary) added and the other has red (primary) added so all bases are covered and it looks visually balanced.” I had never looked at it in this light before. Thanks Helen!

Colour Inspiration Tuesday: Aurora Star

This week I needed to make a once-off 12.5″ pieced quilt block. No further guidelines were given. Which is a much harder task than “make this block”, don’t you think? Anyway, I had no initial ideas beyond wanting to make a scrappy batik block in greens and purples. Thankfully, this past weekend we decorated our Christmas tree (earlier than normal), and that sparked of a whole raft of ideas. And like many of my ideas, the one I settled on came to me via a rather circuitous route.

green star atop Christmas Tree — My daughter’s green star atop our tree. .You can also find a tutorial on how to make your own drum ornament like this one here.

On top of our tree this year is the paper star that my daughter made in Germany last Christmas. It is green. And her green star somehow reminded me of pictures I’ve seen of the Northern Lights, which are predominately green with purple. There are some amazing pictures of the Aurora Borealis on Unsplash.

While I am not a bucket-list kind of person, the northern aurora is one thing I do want to see one day. I was fortunate enough to see small southern auroras from my home twice when I was a teen and I will never forget them.

Anyway, getting back to the point, I started wondering whether people take pictures of Venus (the Morning Star/Evening Star) with the auroras. And of course they do. One of the photographers I have featured before has even shared one on UnSplash. The amazing Jonatan Pie.

Aurora and Venus

But in the end it was his photo of the aurora at sunset that captured my colour imagination.

Aurora at sunset

So I put all these ideas together and decided to make a simple aurora star block in green and purple with splashes of sunset colours. Here is what I made.

It turns out that I didn’t have as many green batik scraps at hand as I thought. But I am still happy with my pretty little block. Of course now I want to make a whole quilt! hahahaha! But that Vanuatu Turtle quilt is the next thing in line for attention, so I shan’t.

Want to make your own Aurora Star?

Now it turns out that there is truly very little new under the sun. A little digging revealed that Em of Sewing by Moonlight has already shared a very good tutorial on how to construct the block I wanted to make. So I decided not to re-invent the wheel. I can tell you that the template she provides works very well, so if you would like to make this block, I wholeheartedly refer you to her post. About the only change I made was that I did not trim the outside edges of the block until I had it all constructed and blocked it square.

Of course, Em’s reasons for making this block were completely different to mine…. if you place multiples of this block together side by side you get octagons (spider webs) with stars in between. But if I were to make a quilt from today’s aurora star idea I would actually use offset blocks to break up the octagons. Because I would want to emphasise the stars in a sea of aurora colours and swirls. Something like this…..

Aurora Star Quilt 1

Or this….

Aurora Star Quilt 2

Or maybe with most of the stars darkened out for the sky…… I think this is my favourite so far.

Credit

Today’s photos are from Unsplash.com. Unsplash is a collection of free, high resolution, “do what you want with” photos. Credit is not required, but I’m sure you’d love to know who is being so generous with their talent. Accordingly, the aurora photos that inspired me to make the aurora star block were provided by Jonatan Pie. Be sure to check out his collection of photos on Unsplash.

Jonatan Pie

You can also see Vincent Guth’s photos here.
Vincent Guth

I hope you enjoyed today’s Colour Inspiration Tuesday! Let me know if you’ve been lucky enough to see Aurora Borealis! Or share your favourite aurora quilt with me – I know there are quite a few bargello versions out there. You can send pictures via the blue, round email icon at the very very bottom of this page. I always love to hear from my readers!

P.S. If you like vivid colours and free-motion quilting, you are sure to like Helen Godden’s work. If you are not already familiar with this amazing quilt artist, then go check her out. She is my recommendation for the week.

P.P.S. If you would like to use Jonatan’s photos or another Colour Inspiration Tuesday photo for your own projects, you can easily find all the Unsplash photos from Colour Inspiration Tuesday in one place for free in my Colour Inspiration Collection.

P.PP.S. Check out the other hubs of creative activity I am linking up with this week:
Main Crush Monday
Love Laugh Quilt
Quilt Fabrication
Sew Fresh Quilts
Freemotion by the River
Busy Hands Quilts
Crazy Mom Quilts
And a new party for me this week: Moving It Forward at Em’s Scrapbag

November 16, 2017January 19, 2024

2017 Ornament Exchange and Tutorial Blog Hop

How to make a Drum Ornament for Christmas

Welcome to the 2017 Ornament Exchange & Blog Hop! This year, there are 47 amazing bloggers participating in the exchange. The rules of the challenge were simple: be partnered with a fellow blogger, create a handmade ornament for $15 or under, create a tutorial, and ship the ornament off to a new home!

Introducing my Ornament Exchange Partner

My 2017 Ornament Exchange partner is the amazing Evija Roberts of From Evija with Love. Evija has a wonderful DIY, crafts & furniture up-cycling blog, where she shares all the creative things she and her cute pug Coco get up to.

Evija’s preferred style of ornament for this exchange is traditional, in silver and white. Luckily for me, I also got bonus intel…. last year Evija did a post about her new Christmas tree and some of her family traditions, so I was able to see exactly what I was aiming for! 🙂

Evija's Christmas tree — Evija’s beautiful Christmas tree

How the Drum Ornament came to be

When I signed up for this blog hop, I had a stack of ornament ideas in my head. But none of them were conceived with the simple elegance of silver and white in mind. And since I’d used up all my silver fabric scraps on several projects last Christmas, I was effectively handed a clean slate to try something different, and an excuse to go craft shopping. Actually, that’s pretty much my definition of Christmas!! Whoop!

I went my local craft store not having a clue what I might make., but assuming colours would be no big deal. But when I got there I discovered all sorts of fun Christmasy fabrics in stock, but nothing in just silver, or in silver and white, or even predominately silver. So, I bought pieces of the two most silver textiles I could see and went home to invent “something”.

Insul-fleece and hexagon fabric — What did I buy? Insul-fleece batting (top of photo) and a sparkly silver and gold hexagon-print cotton fabric.

Soon I was happily humming “Pa rum pa pum pum, rum pa pum pum, rum pa pum pum…”. My supplies had spoken. After tinkering for a while, I realised I had serendipitously purchased exactly the right things to make a drum ornament!

Drum Christmas Ornament for the 2017 Ornament Exchange

PA RUM PA PUM PUM! ….. Go on, hum along as you take a look at my tutorial. 🙂 If you do not yet have the Drummer Boy carol firmly stuck in your head, either you are made of very ear-worm resistant stuff, or your education is lacking somewhere and you should google it…… Enjoy!

2017 Ornament Exchange and Blog Hop

Meet the 2017 Ornament Exchange Hosts

Erlene ⋅ My Pinterventures Kim · Made In A Day Amanda ·Domestically Creative

Shirley · Intelligent Domesticatons Michelle · Our Crafty Mom

Beverly · Across the Blvd. Christene · Key to Inspiration Pili ⋅ My Sweet Things

Nicki · Sweet Parrish Place Megan · C’mon Get Crafty

Hilary · Raising Fairies and Knights Emily · Two Purple Couches

Tina · One Crafty Mess Marie · The Inspiration Vault Debra · Shoppe No. 5

Trisha · Rosewood and Grace Jeanie · Create and Babble Katrin ⋅ Kreativ K

Terri · Christmas Tree Lane Maureen · Red Cottage Chronicles

Toni ⋅ Small Home Soul Ula ⋅ Lulu & Celeste Sue ⋅ A Purdy Little House

Pamela · Home On The Corner Lorelai ⋅ Life with Lorelai Cindy ⋅ DIY Beautify

Debbie ⋅ Tweak and Style Stephanie ⋅ Swoodson Says Chelc ⋅ Inside the Fox Den

Susan ⋅ Super Mom – No Cape! Molly ⋅ Just a Little Creativity

Roseann ⋅ This Autoimmune Life Angela ⋅ Simply Beautiful by Angela

Vicki and Jenn ⋅ 2 Bees in a Pod Joanne ⋅ Our Unschooling Journey

Tylynn ⋅ Bitterroot DIY Sam ⋅ Raggedy Bits Mary ⋅ The Boondocks Blog

Cyn ⋅ Creative Cynchronicity Dione ⋅ Clever Chameleon Quilting

Erica ⋅ Erica Ever After Chelsea ⋅ Love Paper Crafts Evija ⋅ From Evija with Love

Samantha ⋅ Little Bits of Home Hope ⋅ Hopes Crafty Niche Anne ⋅ Orange Bettie

Pam · P.S. I Love You Crafts

Make your own Drum Christmas Tree Ornament – Full Tutorial

Drum ornament supplies

You will need the following supplies:

a feature fabric – sufficient size for 6 hexagons (downloadable pdf template for 3 different hexagon sizes found in this link)
fabric scraps for the top and base of the drum
paper-backed iron-on adhesive or glue stick
Insul-fleece, ordinary fleece or other heavy non-fraying material such as quality felt – You will need a slightly larger piece than that of the feature fabric

Insul-fleece has a shiny silver side and a soft white fluffy side.

6 small beads ( I chose 4mm clear rainbow pearl beads that I had on hand)
6-8″ scrap of thin ribbon to match your project (I used white ribbon snipped from new clothing… you know, that ribbon added to clothes for display hanging purposes….. why waste it?)
cardboard tube (the cardboard tube insert from a hand towel roll or similar)
thread to match or complement your feature fabric and beads
hot glue and gun (or ordinary glue and some patience!)
2 bamboo skewers (large drum) or 2 wooden toothpicks (small drum)
a very small amount of air-drying polymer clay (steal it from your kids/grandkids if you can)
hand-sewing needle, scissors, masking tape or other strong sticky tape, pencil

Optional supplies:

glitter
sewing machine and iron (for sewn version as pictured)
your favourite non-permanent fabric marking method (such as chalk, wash-out marker, freezer paper) for marking hexagon shapes
glue stick (for people who do not like to sew)

Notes on my specific supplies:

The feature fabric I used is called X17 Sparkle Xmas Hexagons (cream) from the Spotlight Apparel Fabric range. It was the hexagon print that directly triggered my idea for the drum ornament. However, there is no need to actually have a hexagon print for this project. Your favourite yardage or scraps cut into hexagons will do equally well.

I also chose to use Insul-fleece (by Legacy) for the main body of the drum purely because it has an Aluminized Polyethylene coating on the back that is shiny silver. …….ooooooh, shiny…… 🙂 . If you don’t need the silver effect, feel free to substitute felt or fleece in your favourite colour instead.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Step 1

Trace out 6 hexagon shapes onto the paper-backed adhesive and iron onto the reverse side of your feature fabric. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions for ironing on your brand of adhesive. Cut out your hexagons and remove the paper backing. Note: If you are using a fabric printed with suitable sized hexagons like I did, you can just iron on the adhesive without pre-marking the hexagon shapes.

Cut hexagon fabric pieces — Enough adhesive-backed hexagons for two Drum Ornaments.

Alternative method: If you want to do a no-sew version of this ornament, simply mark out 6 hexagons on your fabric and cut them out. You don’t need to use the iron-on adhesive.

Step 2

Lay your hexagons onto the soft white side of the Insul-fleece, (or on your felt). If you would like to see borders of the backing fabric around your hexagons on the finished ornament, space your hexagons out accordingly.

Fabric hexagons adhered to Insul-fleece with no spaces.

Adhere your feature hexagons to the Insul-fleece or felt with a hot iron.

No-sew method: Use the glue stick to adhere your fabric hexagons to your chosen backing textile and skip step 3. Please do not use a glue stick if you intend to machine sew your hexagons! It will be no fun if you gum up your machine!

Step 3

Sew around the edge of your hexagons to permanently fix them to the backing textile. Use a thread colour that blends with or adds to your design as you wish, keeping in mind that the sewing will be visible once the ornament is completed. Do this step before you cut the hexagons out of the backing fabric – because sewing around individually cut hexagons is too fiddly….. ask me how I know…… 🙂

No-sew method: Skip Step 3

Step 4

Cut out your 6 hexagons. You can either cut the hexagons flush with the boundaries of the feature fabric or if you have allowed for it, with a border of fleece/felt.

Cut hexies for Drum ornament — Cut hexies for Drum Ornament – no border.

Marked hexies for drum with borders — Marked borders on hexies.

Cut hexies for Drum Ornament - with borders — Cut hexies for Drum Ornament – with border.

Step 5

Place two hexagons reverse-sides together. Join them together by sewing a few stitches on the spot to create an anchor point in one top corner and then the bottom corner directly below. This can be done either by hand or machine.

Position of sewing — Join two hexies together by stitching a few stitches at the position of each “x”.

Sewing two hexies together with a few stitches in one top corner.

Step 6

Open up your work so that you can lay the third hexagon behind the second hexagon. Join these two hexagons with a few stitches in the free top and bottom corners of the second hexagon. Repeat this step until you have a chain of 6 hexagons.

Sewing a hexagon chain — Add hexagons one by one to form a chain of hexies attached to each other at the top and bottom corners.

Step 7

Form your hexagon chain into a circle and sew the top and bottom corners of hexagon 6 to hexagon 1. Quietly trim any corners that haven’t quite lined up to get a nice straight top for your drum. Your feature fabric should be on the outside of the circle and your drum should now look like this…..

Hexagon circle — Hexagons sewn into a circle, ready for the cardboard tube insert

Step 8

If you are making a drum that is thinner than your cardboard tube, cut the cardboard tube lengthwise.

cardboard tube

Now, overlap the cut edges to create a narrower tube that fits snuggly inside your hexagon circle.

Secure the tube at the correct diameter with tape.

cardboard tube secured with tape

Note: If you are using the largest size hexagons from my template, a standard (Australian) paper towel roll insert should fit inside your hexagon circle unaltered, so you can skip this step.

Step 9

Shorten your cardboard roll to a few mm less than the height of your hexagon circle.

Recessed cardboard tube — Cut your cardboard tube so that it is flush with the bottom of your drum but recessed slightly at the top.

Next, cut two fabric scraps into rough circles somewhat larger than the ends of your cardboard tubes.

cut a top and bottom for your drum

Snip the overhanging fabric from the edge in towards the tube so that the fabric bends easily over the tube. Secure one circle of fabric to the top of the tube with tape or glue to form the top of your drum.

Fabric top secured onto cardboard tube. — Secure the fabric top onto your cardboard tube. Now repeat for the bottom.

Repeat this process with the second circle of fabric to form the bottom of your drum. I used Insul-fleece for the top of my drum and a white fabric scrap for the base.

Step 10

Fold your ribbon in half and secure both ends to the tube (with glue or tape) so that the loop will emerge from the top of the drum for hanging.

drum insert — Your cardboard tube should now be covered with fabric top and bottom, and have a ribbon loop attached

Slide the completed tube assembly into your hexagon circle. Secure with a little glue inserted between the tube and the hexagon circle.

Drum with insert — Slide the fabric covered tube into your hexagon circle and secure in place with glue.

Step 11

Each hexagon should have two corners poking out from the circle. Join these two loose corners to each other with a few hand-stitches so that they come together in front of their own hexagon.

hand stitch the drum details — Join the loose corners of each hexagon together so they meet in front.

Once each corner is secure, stitch a bead onto the point for decoration.

Adding beads to the drum — Add a bead to each point for decoration.

completed drum ornament for Christmas — Your Drum Ornament is now complete. You can hang it as is, or add drumsticks.

Step 12

Create two drumsticks by trimming two toothpicks or bamboo skewers to size (for small drums use toothpicks, for larger drums use skewers).

cut skewers — Trim your toothpicks and skewers to approximately 4 – 6.5cm (1.5 – 2.5″) long

Add a small ball of polymer clay to the end of each stick. Optional: Knead glitter into the polymer clay for a little more sparkle on your drumsticks.

Attach the drumsticks to the drum with a few hand-stitches or a little glue.

two completed drum ornaments

Step 13

Send a picture of your fabulous creation to dione @ cleverchameleon.com.au so I can share it with everyone and we can see how clever you are! Then enjoy your new Christmas ornament and have a safe, magical Christmas!

Here’s a couple of variations of the drum ornament that I made: with borders around the hexagons – one with a simple solid purple feature fabric.

bigger drum ornaments

FIND ALL 47 HANDMADE ORNAMENT TUTORIALS BELOW AND SHARE YOURS TOO! Use Hashtag #2017OrnamentExchange so we can see your creations on social media.

An InLinkz Link-up

P.S. Don’t forget to check out the other 46 other ornaments on the blog hop today!

P.P.S. Please make sure you drop by Erlene’s blog at My Pinterventures and thank her for running this massive blog hop!

P.P.P.S Sharing the Christmas joy on my favourite linky parties: Quilting Room with Mel, Quilt Fabrication, Sew Fresh Quilts, My Quilt Infatuation, Confessions of a Quilt Addict, Busy Hands Quilts,

November 14, 2017January 19, 2024

Colour Inspiration Tuesday: English Broom

Colour Inspiration Tuesday: Real life inspiration for quilts and crafts

This week has been a little hectic here, so there’s been very little sewing time for me. There was a fair bit of secret Christmas crafting, which I am excited to be able to share with you on Thursday, but no quilting. I’ve been creating for the Christmas Ornament Exchange and tutorial blog hop coming up this week…. Stay tuned, it’s going to be huge!

One of the main reasons why it’s been a slow week here is that I went on a two-day camp in the local hills with my young son. This past weekend was the South Australian Hoporee camp at Woodhouse. This camp is the state level Joey Scout adventure that happens only once every two years. A very action-packed weekend for nearly 1,000 people (children, parents and leaders), and one of the highlights of the Joey Scout calendar.

Here’s just a very small taste of what the Joeys (6&7 year olds) got up to with the support of their parents and Scout Leaders……

Rock climbing — A bit of rock climbing…..

Remembrance Day banner — Each Joey made paper poppies to add to this banner to commemorate Remembrance Day on Nov 11.

feet in slime — Treasure hunting in a pool of slime….

Kids in a paper wheel — Reinventing the wheel….

decorating a rock — Recording the things that matter.

All in the midst of the beautiful Adelaide Hills, in amongst the koalas, pobblebonk frogs and kookaburras.

Colour Inspiration Tuesday: English Broom

As well as the ample wildlife (that seemed surprising unperturbed by the sudden influx of 1,000 people), there were also some notable spring flowers about. While we were on a rest break I spotted a medium-sized bush with stunning yellow and red pea flowers…… So I took pictures of that too, thinking it would make an fabulous colour board for Tuesday. Which I hope you will agree, it most certainly does.

But I have to admit that I was also highly disappointed when I did some research yesterday and found out that this plant is an invasive noxious weed in Australia (and according to Wikipedia, also parts of the US, and New Zealand, and India).

English Broom color scheme from Clever Chameleon

This naughty but beautiful plant is commonly known as English Broom, Scotch Broom or Common Broom. The scientific name is Cytisus scoparius. Most often the flowers are plain yellow…. which well describes the other bushes I saw at the campsite. But there are also several multi-coloured hybrids that have naturalised, and this particular bush was showing off big-time!

I am not sure what I will do with this vivid red, green and yellow colour scheme. I had thought a true-to-life pea flower appliqué would be nice, but the noxious invasive weed thing has taken the shine off that idea. At least for now. In reality, English Broom is not a bad plant – just not welcome here. Perhaps the best place for it is on a quilt or cushion after all! I’ll have to muse over this one for a while.

In the meantime…

Wishing you all a lovely week, and hope to see you back here on Thursday. I will have for you a tutorial on how to make the Christmas tree ornament I dreamed up for my 2017 Ornament Exchange partner. I am paired up with the very talented Evija of the award winning From Evija with Love blog. How lucky am I? Anyway, there will be links to 46 other ornament tutorials from around the world on this hop. All on Thursday! You’ll be sure to find something you will want to make!

P.S. Linking up with Cooking up Quilts, Fiber Tuesday, Freemotion by the River, The Inquiring Quilter, Midweek Makers.

November 7, 2017January 19, 2024

Colour Inspiration Tuesday: Poolside Fun

Poolside Fun color scheme from Clever Chameleon

Colour Inspiration Tuesday: Colour Spring-Boards for your Quilt, Craft and Decor Ideas

Over the closed winter period, our local outdoor public pool has redecorated. Just a paint job mostly, but I like it. The colours chosen are fresh, fun and summery – like an outdoor pool should be. There are also a few extra shade sails and some new furniture. Not extravagant, but useful and happy. 🙂

I like the new colours. Specifically, I like them in this space. They work very well here and add nicely to the atmosphere. I wouldn’t like them in my home, with the possible exception of a child’s bedroom. I probably wouldn’t like them in a work office either. But they are appropriate for a recreational space like the pool.

Colour Inspiration Tuesday: Poolside Fun colour scheme

Wouldn’t these colours make a great picnic quilt? Something that makes you want to take it to the beach or the park or the pool. A quilt that reminds you that outings are fun (once you get there!! 🙂 ) and says “Let’s go!!”.

Here’s my quick diagram of an idea that came to mind:

This wouldn’t be difficult to make. Just a bit time consuming on the icy-poles.

Do you have a picnic quilt? Did you make it yourself? Tell me, have you water-proofed it in anyway? I am wondering if there is something better for the underside of picnic quilts than quilting weight cotton? Or an internal layer that will make it more serviceable and less prone to collecting prickles and transferring dampness from the ground? Recycled denim perhaps? Or recycled rubber-backed curtains? If you have relevant experience to share, I’d love to know. 🙂

P.S. Warning: The pineapples are still out there, stalking quilters. They’ve now got into Anita’s blog at Domestic Felicity. She is making a lovely pineapple quilt for her November One Monthly Goal. Go on, go have a look.

P.P.S. Linking up to some fun linky parties: Love Laugh Quilt, Cooking Up Quilts, Fiber Tuesday, Sew Fresh Quilts, Crazy Mom Quilts., Busy Hands Quilts

November 6, 2017January 19, 2024

Vanuatu Turtle Quilt Progress: blocks

Vanuatu Turtle Quilt: Design process, warts and all.

In the last few days I have finally had a chance to get back into the sewing room. And I have to admit it was very therapeutic. I have missed sewing. So has our cat. I swear he is addicted as I am!

My goal this week was to design and sew the blocks for my black, white and red Vanuatu Turtle quilt for the Splash of Color Quilt Along. I started with this basic plan…

Vanuatu turtle quilt plan

And these fabrics…..

Vanuatu turtle quilt fabrics

If you wish, you can read more about the what and why of my original plans, and see my turtle appliqué pieces all cut, waiting for a quilt top.

So, on Thursday, I started on the quilt top. I looked at my plan. I cut six 6½ squares. And I went off script.

That might be a record, even for me!

Changing my mind….

Firstly, I decided that I wanted to add in a very dark, plain fabric behind the bulk of the turtle appliqué. Plainer than any fabric I have brought home from Vanuatu. I did actually look for a mostly black fabric in Vanuatu, but there wasn’t any to be had.

So, I went hunting among my scraps here at home and found an Australian Aboriginal print in black called Sand Dunes. The Sand Dunes scraps are leftover from the backing of a dear friend’s quilt. It is very soft and colourfast – an amazing piece of fabric to work with. So I added it to the mix. I also found some black 2½” pre-cut strips inherited from another friend. Perfect for extra darkness behind the appliqué.

Turltle quilt background — Dark corner for the turtle appliqué background. Sand Dunes is the black with the dotted wavy lines through it.

Changing my mind, again…

Although I had a 5×5 grid drawn up for my colour gradient in the quick diagram above, I had actually intended to do an 8×8 grid of 6″ squares. Some fussy cut whole squares and some pieced squares to get a black and white gradient. That is why I started by cutting 6½ squares of each Vanuatu fabric.

However, I quickly realised that 6″ squares of pinwheels and HSTs in these prints is going to result in a very. busy. quilt. Which would be fine, except that this was supposed to be the background for my appliquéd turtle. And it was also going to take waaaay too long to construct.

So, I decided that my mockup was trying to tell me something – that I should have 5×5 8″ finished blocks. I cut some new 8½” squares, and recycled the 6½” squares into 8½ squares by adding 2½” strips on two sides. This had the added bonus of being an easy way to graduate through colour values and tie the blocks together visually.

Vanuatu Turtle Quilt progress — Building up the Vanuatu Turtle Quilt

And again…

As I started on the more intricately pieced blocks, I decided that I needed some more solid or solid-like fabrics. Specifically in the grey range. Somewhere for the eyes to rest from the prints. I had already included a blue-grey hand-dye and a white solid in my original fabric choices. Now I added two grey Shadow Play fabrics from my scraps. I only had enough of the dark grey Shadow Play for 4 pieces. But that is half the fun, making do. 🙂

And again…

At this point it was time for me to head out to the South Australian Quilters’ Guild evening meeting. I’m glad I got this far before I had to go, because I was beginning to heed the little voice that said I needed to add a nearly white fabric. There were no nearly white fabrics in Vanuatu, just as there were no nearly black ones. I had thought that I might get by with fussy cutting. Or using the reverse side of a fabric. But…

At the Guild meetings there is always a shop stall, and in the end I picked up something to round out my fabric choices. Actually I picked up two somethings. One was a white fabric with a fine black print. It had slightly more black than I wanted, but it was the best pick available. I was happy at least that the swirls on the print are consistent with the patterns already in my quilt. 🙂 The second purchase was a fat quarter of a dark blue-grey Grunge that happens to be the exact same colour as the blue grey on two of the Vanuatu fabrics. Score!

Finishing off the design

A little more playing and switching fabrics around and I settled on this layout (with a few more tweaks as I sewed).

Cat designing a quilt — Somebody who thinks he is invisible siiting here…..

And now I have finished sewing up the 8½” blocks for my Vanuatu Turtle quilt. They are ready to be assembled into a quilt top and have borders attached.

Pile of blocks for Vanuatu Turtle Quilt — Happy with my pile of blocks

So, how am I feeling? Well, I really love this quilt top so far. I think the design is actually quite effective as it is. A small part of me even thinks that I should claim the grey-blue as my “Splash of Color” and leave it really simple. Because there is a whisper of a question in my head as to whether it will marry well with my appliqué. Despite all the changes I have made, it is still very busy.

But the whole point of this quilt is the turtle appliqué….. And if I stop now this quilt top will be too small to be particularly useful, and my turtle appliqué will be orphaned. So I will push on. If, in the end, it isn’t as fantastic as I envisioned, then I won’t mind it going on the couch, right?! And there is always something to be learned in quilts that don’t quite make it to awesome. Fingers crossed that I am just over analysing things and it will be just fine!

If you are also participating in the Splash of Color Quilt Along I hope that you are pleased with your progress so far. If you like black and white quilts and haven’t been over and checked out the progress of the other projects yet, be sure to do that. Everyone has chosen their own project, so this QAL is very interesting, even as a spectator sport. 🙂

P.S. Colour Inspiration Tuesday resumes here tomorrow! Yay!

Also linking up to Freemotion by the River, Wednesday Wait Loss, Quilt Fabrication, Needle and Thread Thursday, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Crazy Mom Quilts.