January 2018 monthly goal

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!

Island Batik Ambassador

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.

fabric precut — 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!

pinned quilt — 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!

I am adding my link to Elm Street Quilts today. And I’m sharing on Freemotion by the River.

P.S. Have you checked out all the other bloggers on the Monthly Color Challenge Hop List yet?

November Roundup at Clever Chameleon

One Monthly Goal Check-in and November Roundup

At the beginning of November I nominated a specific goal for OMG at Elm Street Quilts. My goal was to get this charity quilt off my “to be quilted” pile so that it can go to its new home. It was pieced by one of the generous members of Southern Comforters.

Pink and green quilt — Charity quilt waiting in my queue

And I am pleased to say that this dirty trick still works!…….. I have gotten around to quilting this little quilt, and attaching the binding, purely because I had this pseudo deadline. Sad but true.

I am very glad it’s done though. It is a pretty little thing. And I had a lot of fun further developing my Strawberry Vines allover FMQ skills on it. I haven’t had much time for FMQ over the past couple of months. I’d forgotten how much I enjoy it.

Here’s some pics of the strawberry motifs I used on a loop-de-loop string to keep this quilt soft and informal. I didn’t want to compete with the strong geometric design in the piecing, so I kept the thread to a low contrast pink. The choice is perfect in real life….. but a bit difficult to photograph for you. I hope you can see well enough.

Strawberry quilting — Strawberries, with seeds

Strawberry quilting motifs — And without seeds

strawberry quilting motif — Strawberry flowers

I’ve also had my work quality controlled by the expert and it was approved…..

Cat on quilt — Can always rely on the Boss to keep an eye on things…..

The border has a striped green fabric, so I just quilted the edges of the stripes to create faux piano keys. It was the right decision, they look very neat and tidy.

It may have been last minute, but this quilt finish has made me happy.

Pink and green quilt

What else happened at Clever Chameleon in November?

Well, we had 4 Colour Inspiration Tuesdays. On week one, “Poolside Fun” featured the new décor at our local outdoor pool and put me in the mood to design a summery picnic quilt.

Poolside Fun color scheme from Clever Chameleon — Poolside Fun colour scheme

Poolside Fun-inspired picnic quilt design

On week two, the “English Broom” colour scheme was inspired by a beautiful flower I observed at my son’s Joey Scout Hoporee camp. I probably learned more about this flower than was helpful, since I found myself freshly uninspired in the end. But that is sometimes how it goes when you look into the truth of a thing. And I now know things I didn’t before, which overall is a win. At the end of the day, this flower is still pretty.

The next week, “Aurora Star” was the result of a thought experiment that started with a green paper star on top of our Christmas Tree and ended with a sewn patchwork block and another quilt design.

And finally, Tuesday just gone we had “Christmas Bells”. This was a response to an Australian native tree near my house that comes out in a profusion of pink bells at this time of year.

I ended up using the ideas that flowed from this exploration to create a new ornament for our Christmas Tree. My intention is to finish writing you a tutorial on this project next week. So stay tuned!

Christmas Bell ornament

Beyond Colour Inspiration Tuesdays

Another of my aims for this month was to make sufficient progress on my Vanuatu Turtle quilt for the Splash of Color Quilt Along. I shared up to the stage shown below on Busy Hands Quilts. The red inner border is now attached but I don’t have a photo to show you yet. I will show you that at the same time as I report how the turtle appliqué overlay goes…… The flimsy deadline for this quilt along is before mid December, so I will getting to that very soon!

Vanuatu Turtle quilt progress

And I was also part of the 2017 Ornament Exchange and Tutorial Blog Hop at Erlene’s blog: My Pinterventures. I designed and shared a drum ornament that you can make from your quilting scraps. In return, I received two fabulous Suffolk Puff ornaments for my tree. If you are looking for something to make for your tree, or a loved one’s tree this year, there are currently 106 (!) projects in this collection.

Drum ornaments for Christmas

And last, but not least for November, Clever Chameleon finally hit Facebook. A move that was overdue, but better late than never! I will be endeavouring to keep a log of more informal updates on the Facebook page in addition to the blog posts here. “Like” Clever Chameleon on FB to follow along!

Phew. So that’s a wrap for another month! To think that the next roundup is not due until after Christmas! Where did 2017 go??!

I’m sharing my OMG success on Elm Street Quilts. If you are participating, I look forward to finding you there. Or let me know directly how your November went. I’d love to hear from you.

Wishing you all a very safe and festive December. 🙂

P.S. Also sharing on:
Freemotion by the River, Quilt Fabrication, Midweek Makers, Sew Fresh Quilts, Finishing Stitches, The Inquiring Quilter, Free Motion Mavericks, My Quilt Infatuation, Crazy Mom Quilts.