Accuquilt Archives - Page 2 of 4 - Clever Chameleon Quilting

August 13, 2019January 19, 2024

Pinwheels and Pretties: Colour & Inspiration Tuesday

Pinwheels and Pretties colour board from Clever Chameleon

Pinwheels Mystery Quilt Progress

Over a year ago I started a quilt that will actually, one day, be for me! I started it at a Pick-A-Case mystery retreat with Judy in Bordertown. Which I attended at the invitation and insistence of my at-the-time-unmet internet blogger friend, Joy (of Days Filled with Joy blogging fame).

But once I was home from that retreat, the quilt dropped like a stone in the priority queue and stalled. I’m sure many of you will be familiar with the troubles associated with finishing a project for oneself over all the other important and urgent quilts in the works! So, until this past weekend that mystery retreat quilt has laid largely untouched.

What was so special about this past weekend that it got such a quilt back on track? Well, I returned to Judy’s place to spend some more time with her and Joy and other quilter friends. This time my goals were to play with our collective AccuQuilt GO! resources, and to get some more done on “that quilt”! We had a lot fun, and I even made some on target progress too. 😀

July 8, 2019January 19, 2024

Success at Festival of Quilts 2019

"Always Choose Tropical" chameleon quilt at the SA Festival of Quilts. By Dione Gardner-Stephen of Clever Chameleon

The Chameleon gets his 15 seconds of Fame!

The Chameleon will have to forgive me for taking so long to get around to making a chameleon quilt now, don’t you think? Not only did I make him a quilt FULL of cheeky chameleons, but I showed it in our local Festival of Quilts, and it won its category’s blue ribbon. That ought to keep him off my case for a while!

The weekend just gone was the annual Quilters’ Guild of South Australia’s Festival of Quilts. After judging, entrants who are successful get a specific invitation to the awards and opening ceremony, but no indication of the flavour of their award. Happily, happily, happily I got one of those calls. So I toddled off into the city centre on Friday morning to accept my prize.

Turned out, it was four prizes, one for each quilt I entered. I had dared hope that the chameleon quilt would place, because I put my all into that one. Anything that wasn’t perfect on that project met Mr Ripper, pronto. But two of the other ribbons were pleasant surprises, and the third was more of a very pleasant shock.

If you will indulge my excitement for one post, I will show you what I entered in our annual quilt show and what I was awarded. Two of the awarded quilts were made primarily for this blog in the past year, so I hope you will also accept my thanks for reading and giving me a reason to make more quirky quilts. 🙂

May 28, 2019January 19, 2024

Tic Tac Toad – Colour & Inspiration Tuesday

Tic Tac Toad color scheme from CLever Chameleon

An Island Batik Ambassador Quilt Finish

May is drawing to a close – it’s starting to feel more wintery here, and it’s time to show you my finished Island Batik Ambassador quilt for this month. My checkers quilt, Hop to be Square is my Island Batik project for May. I hope you saw last week’s post explaining how the flimsy of Hop to be Square came about…. It was nearly as much of a surprise to me as anyone – it was certainly not the quilt I sat down to make!

Back side of Hop to be Square quilt at Clever Chameleon

Today I get to show you what I put on the back side of Hop to be Square. Just like the quilt top, the back took itself off plan as soon as it was in progress! To begin with, I thought I was the one being clever….. I had three checkered batik fabrics from Island Batik. And since the quilt front is a board for playing Checkers, they seemed like the simple and perfect fit for the backing……

But then the fabrics played me!

May 21, 2019January 19, 2024

Hop to be Square: Colour & Inspiration Tuesday

Eye’ve got a confession to make

I changed my mind (shock). Several times. (More shock….. you are shocked…… right?!). When I got out of bed on Sunday I was all set to use my sewing time to make a modern quilt for Island Batik and HOBBS. I was going to make a large colourful graphic improv block…. maybe a wonky log cabin or a star. And float it in a big black background.

It was going to be Modern As. After all, this month’s Island Batik Ambassador challenge is “Make it Modern with HOBBS”.

Instead this happened…..

Hop to be Square quilt top with HOBBS batting

“Hop to be square”. Modern, yes. Improv, no. Bright and colourful, no. Floating block, still no. Not my fault though. I am just the medium the quilts use to get here….. 😀

May 7, 2019January 19, 2024

Something Fishy: Colour & Inspiration Tuesday

Something Fishy colour scheme by Clever Chameleon

Does something smell fishy in your inbox?

At the risk of sounding obsessed with all things aquatic, yes, we are still on the theme of quilted ponds and fishes and such things here. Partly out of coincidence though….. I have been drawing up the next few patterns for the Love with a Twist quilt along and one of May’s blocks just happens to be the fish balloon. So I still have fish on the brain. But I promise we will surface from our underwater explorations very soon. I think a sweet balloon bunny with his mummy appliqué would be a nice pattern release around Mother’s Day this weekend. Don’t you?

Before that though, as a little extra, I thought I would add some detail to my blog today about how to create the water-loving critters found on my Pond Life quilt from last month. Including the extra frog shapes from the Accuquilt leaping frog die and the fish quilting motif that was my favourite. Are you ready? Let’s dive a little deeper into Pond Life….