Colour Inspiration Tuesday Collection 2

Colour Inspiration Tuesday Collection Number 2

Welcome to the second collection of Colour Inspiration Tuesday mood boards. Twelve more colour boards to inspire, and to get you planning your next quilt project! If you missed the first 12 Colour Inspiration Tuesday colour schemes, you can find them here.

Well, what a few weeks of Colour Inspired Tuesdays it’s been! We’ve had another quilt design, a series of matching fabric to colours in photos, and the beginnings of a cheeky parrot appliqué.

hazy days color scheme by Clever Chameleon — Hazy Days fabric mood board featured in the ten finalists for the Summer Crush mosaic contest at Stitched in Color blog.

Cat on a wall design from Clever Chameleon — Cat on a wall quilt idea from Sunset Wall colour scheme, and re-coloured to Another World Blue colour palette.

Dancing Macaw appliqué from Clever Chameleon — Dancing Macaw appliqué from Dancing Macaw Colour Inspiration Tuesday.

And, if that wasn’t enough, I have some extra news! Now we’ve been invited to participate in an art-inspired quilt blog hop. What fun!! Alida at Tweety Loves Quilting blog is holding the fourth Art with Fabric blog hop, starting 9th October. Five days of artworks re-interpreted as quilted items. And Clever Chameleon will feature on Friday the 13th! Lucky for some! Head on over and have a pre-view of the line up.

Art with Fabric blog hop @ tweloquilting.blogspot.com

The second Colour Inspiration Tuesday Collection

To access the colour palettes of the second Colour Inspiration Tuesday collection, click on the thumbnails below.

Follow along and be the first with the free inspiration!

clever chameleon logo

At Clever Chameleon we explore at least one potential quilt colour scheme every week. I also share my own creations and tutorials regularly. Follow Clever Chameleon Quilting on Bloglovin’ to stay abreast of all the fun quilty things I do and find on the internet. Or subscribe to receive regular Clever Chameleon emails that will Colour Your Mood and Brighten Your World.

Colour Inspiration Tuesday is also easily accessible through Pinterest. Follow my Understanding Color for Quilts board for regular quilt colour inspiration.

P.S. If you are an art quilter (or want to start now!), there is still a small window of opportunity to join the Art with Fabric blog hop. Head over to Tweety Loves Quilting for all the details.

P.PS. Linking up with my favourite parties this week:
The Quilting Room with Mel
Crazy Mom Quilts
Be sure to visit these links for lots of great quilt inspiration in one place.

September 5, 2017January 19, 2024

Colour Inspiration Tuesday: Hoppy Tuesday!

Colour Inspiration Tuesday – happy, hoppy colours for all your craft projects!!

Welcome back to Colour Inspiration Tuesday! A Hoppy Tuesday!

Well! There was a fabulous response to last week’s colour boards. And many of you liked my dancing macaw as well. I shall have to pull my finger out and get that appliqué design under way. However, this week is Royal Show week in Adelaide, so there could be a few distractions. The Gardner-Stephen household is celebrating two craft wins this year. More on that when I have photos.

In the meantime, I have gone with the fun critter theme for a second week because I found a number of fantastic frog photos on Unsplash.com when I was browsing last.

Don’t you just love these little guys:

Have a guess what my next appliqué creature will be after the macaw?! What? A racoon?! Don’t be daft……. hahahaha. 🙂

Colour Inspiration Tuesday – Hoppy Tuesday

Three frogs, three characters, three colour boards today.

Hoppy Tuesday colour scheme from Clever Chameleon — Why Sit on a Lily Pad?!

Why Sit on a Lily Pad when you can parade around in the lily flower instead?!

Actually, this frog is probably wondering why he can’t just be left to sit in peace in his tank, being a (pet) tree frog and all. But it’s a cute photo, and the purple colour against the yellow is stunning. And surely there no nicer green than tree frog green, is there? It is so ALIVE.

Hoppy Tuesday colour scheme from Clever Chameleon

The second of my favourite frogs looks more at home in his surroundings. Frog King of All He Surveys. I just love his expression and posture. Probably the colours in this shot are not what I would use for a cheeky frog appliqué, but the rest of the picture is perfect inspiration.

Hoppy Tuesday color scheme from Clever Chameleon

Last up, we have the photo that actually started today’s frog collection. I love the “Hoppy Tuesday” colours of this frog, and the background texture of the wood he is sitting on. I can just see in my mind’s eye a cheeky green frog appliqué on a cushion background made of improv piecing in red, brown, burnt orange and tan fabric scraps.

For a kid’s frog quilt inspiration you might like this blog post about twin girl and boy frog baby quilts at Lo, Ray and Me.

Or you can follow along with Sandra Healy’s calendar quilt. August’s block featured a cute frog on a lily pad.

Not into frogs? (Really?!) Well, its just gone September, so how about some seasonal suggestions instead?

It’s officially spring here in Adelaide now. Not that you’d believe it this week with top temps of 14 and 15°C for the next few days. So in the hope that the sun is coming, I will remind you of another lily colour scheme we had a while ago: Lily Pad Glow.

Or if you are in the Northern Hemisphere, fall is on it’s way….. Try Autumn Splendour for a new take on fall colours.

Credit

I have already covered this to some extent today, but because I really appreciate the talented photographers who generously donate their art to the world without strings attached, I’m going to tell you again. 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 it is totally deserved. So I would like you to know that the photographers featured today are David Clode and Wayne Robinson. Be sure to check out their collections of photos on Unsplash.

david clode

Wayne Robinson

For colour inspiration for your quilts in your inbox weekly follow along by subscribing to this blog by email in the side bar. You can also follow my blog on Bloglovin’. Or follow Clever Chameleon Quilt Colour Inspiration on Pinterest and pin your favourite colour palettes to try later.

I hop 😉 you found some colour inspiration for your projects or the next chapter of your quilt story in among all these beautiful frogs and Hoppy Tuesday colour boards! Have you ever made a frog quilt? Or maybe you keep tree frogs as pets (lucky you). Let us know all about it in the comments below!

P.S. If you would like to use David’s or Wayne’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.P.S. Linking up this week with Sew Fresh Quilts. Visit for lots of great quilt inspiration in one place.

August 29, 2017January 19, 2024

Colour Inspiration Tuesday: Dancing Macaw

Dancing Macaw color scheme from Clever Chameleon

Colour Inspiration Tuesday – explore with me the endless possibilities of colour for our quilts!

Welcome back to Tuesday! We made it! This past weekend we had a family celebration with my father turning 70, so blogging has had a backseat for a few days. But here we are, on the right day, and more or less on time! Yay!

Colour Inspiration Tuesday: Dancing Macaw

About the time I started the Clever Chameleon blog, I also started experimenting with free-motion appliqué. Free-motion appliqué was the homework of my very first Sweet Sixteen monthly meeting. During this time I drew up a number of critters I thought I would like to turn into appliqué designs. One of these fellows was this guy – a cheeky version of a dancing macaw. Macaws are magnificently beautiful, don’t you think?!

Dancing Macaw appliqué design in progress.

Needless to say though, learning to blog has been even more intensive than I expected, and I haven’t yet got back to developing many of the designs into patterns. (Some owls are an exception, more on that another day soon! And I did do a pelican quilt – do you remember him?). Anyway, when I found a photo of a blue and gold macaw on Unsplash.com, I knew I had to do a “Dancing Macaw” colour board.

Dancing Macaw color scheme from Clever Chameleon

The “Dancing Macaw” colour scheme is gold and blue. It is a beautiful example of blue and orange-yellow together. You’ll be hard pressed to go wrong with these colours on a quilt because they are complementary and therefore very eye-catching.

The only downside is that the macaw photo doesn’t really capture all the colours that I want to use for my macaw appliqué. So I went back to Unsplash.com and found another photo that makes pulling out the colours I want easier. So, without further ado, here is today’s second colour board: Summer Foliage.

Summer Foliage color scheme from Clever Chameleon

The Summer Foliage colour scheme is blue, gold and green. Between these two new colour boards, I believe I will have no trouble at all putting together a collection of fabrics to appliqué my dancing macaw. What would you use these colours for?! Let us know in the comments below.

Maybe blue and orange is not your favourite complementary colour scheme….

How does pink and green suit you instead? Last week we looked at how to use red and green colours without accidentally evoking Christmas.

Or you could check out the fun series we had recently – looking at matching colour boards to fabrics to express a variety of summer themes. Start here and follow the links to all five “summer crush” colour boards.

Credit

Today’s photos in Dancing Macaw hues 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 macaw photo was provided by Andrew Pons and the foliage photograph was taken by Jakob Owens. Be sure to check out their collections of photos on Unsplash.

Andrew Pons
Jakob Owens

yellow Clever Chameleon logo For more colour inspiration for your quilts, follow along by subscribing to this blog by email (on the sidebar).

Or follow Clever Chameleon Quilt Colour Inspiration on Pinterest and pin your favourite colour palettes to try later.

P.S. If you would like to use Andrew’s or Jakob’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.P.S. Check out the other hubs of creative activity I am linking up with this week:
The Quilting Room with Mel
Freemotion by the River
Sew Fresh Quilts
Quilt Fabrication

August 22, 2017January 19, 2024

Colour Inspiration Tuesday: Pink Chalice

Pink Chalice color scheme by Clever Chameleon

Colour Inspiration Tuesday: a growing resource of colour combinations to try on your quilts.

Hello! Happy Colour Inspiration Tuesday! Did you enjoy the fabric mosaic ideas last week? I think we should do that more often! But today we return to a more normal Tuesday formula….. and we have a magnificent red and green colour palette up for discussion. Let’s chat about the colours in “Pink Chalice”, a colour palette inspired by beautiful crisp pink Calla Lilies.

Red and blue-green look so vivid together because they are complementary colours. This means that they are opposite each other in position on the colour wheel. The brain likes complementary colours, and most people react favourably to these colour combinations. However, red and green also have a strong cultural significance in communities that celebrate a Western style Christmas. So, it can sometimes be tricky to use these colours without accidentally giving your project a christmasy feel. This problem is likely not consistently an issue across all cultures, but it certainly is in mine.

Pink Chalice color scheme from Clever Chameleon

Colour Inspiration Tuesday: Pink Chalice

The “Pink Chalice” colour palette is old rose, dusky pink, powder pink, tan, forest green, deep forest green and green to the point of black. Let’s call it midnight green! I really like these colours together with white for a fresh feeling quilt. If I needed more colours other than the standard 7 of Colour Inspiration Tuesday, I would add another green, another red-pink and another neutral.

I haven’t mocked up my own quilt with these colours because I already know of one that I would make if I was going down this path. I really love this half-square triangles quilt by Teri Townley at the Hummingbird Thread blog.

Half-square triangles quilt by Teri Townley

I have collected a few pictures of red and green quilts that I think could be used anytime, not just Christmas. Not that I have anything against Christmas, I just think red and green should be seen other times too! Visit my Pinterest board Red and Green Quilts for more ideas. Follow me on Pinterest….. I have a Christmas board too.

What would you do with these colours? I’d love to hear your thoughts on your perfect green and red quilt combination. Even if it is Christmasy! Drop us a comment below and share your creativity with everyone.

Don’t need green and red today, Christmas or otherwise?

Have you been following along with Colour Inspiration Tuesday for all the colour combinations and quilt ideas you’ll only find here?

If not you can get a quick overview of the colour combinations we have been exploring lately in this review post.

You can also get moving on your fall projects with the Autumn Splendour colour palette. Halloween and Thanksgiving are only just around the corner now, at least in regards to crafting something that will be finished in time to use!

Today’s Photo Credit

Today’s stock photo is from Unsplash.com. Unsplash is a collection of free, high resolution, “do what you want with” photos. These photo’s are gifted freely and without demand, but I like to thank people who live so generously. So, if you would like to also use this lovely photo, it was provided by Ethan Robertson via Unsplash. Click on the badge below to explore Ethan’s other photos.
Ethan Robertson

Clever Chameleon logo in light green Don’t miss a post – follow along by subscribing to this blog. Or follow Clever Chameleon Quilt Colour Inspiration on Pinterest and pin your favourite colour palettes to try later.

P.S. For your convenience, I have placed all the Unsplash photos from Colour Inspiration Tuesdays in one place. Find them easily for free in my Colour Inspiration Collection.

August 18, 2017January 19, 2024

Colour Inspiration Tuesday: Hazy Days

Colour Inspiration Tuesday(ish): More free colour resources for inspiring your quilts

Welcome to the last post in our Summer Crush Colour Inspiration “Week of Tuesdays”! I hope you have enjoyed exploring how to turn colour mood boards into fabric collections from your favourite fabric store. I certainly have!

Hazy Days colour scheme from Clever Chameleon — Hazy Days colour scheme

Today, as promised, I am exploring not one but two summer photos that I like from Unsplash.com. The first colour board, called “Hazy Days”, captures perfectly the feel of a relentlessly hot day on the beach. What could be more summery than a lifeguard on duty? The second board I am calling “Blood Orange and Mint”. This board comes from a photo of iced water with citrus and mint. It makes me think of refreshing cool drinks and good company, watching a balmy summer evening darken into dusk.

Blood Orange and Mint color scheme from Clever Chameleon

Colour Inspiration Tuesday: Blood Orange and Mint & Hazy Days.

The reason why I have grouped these two photos and their colour palettes into one post is because they are quite related, and have given me very similar end mosaics. Both colour schemes consist of at least one blue, green, turquoise, red-orange and brown colour each. Not the same shades and ratios of each hue, but most definitely representatives from the same set of colour families. Who would have thought? Certainly not I. When I chose these two photos, I was definitely not expecting similar outcomes.

The Blood Orange and Mint Fabric Mosaic

Thanks to Stitched in Color, this week there has been a fun opportunity to use the fabrics available at Quilt Sandwich Fabrics’ Etsy shop to create a collection of nine fabrics that you think capture the theme “Summer Crush”. If you haven’t participated already, there is still time until the 21st August.

Blood Orange and Mint color scheme from Clever Chameleon — Blood orange and Mint colour scheme

To express the colours that I have pulled out of the beverages photograph, I chose the following fabrics. Most of them I chose predominately on colour, but there are a few that I think match the Summer Crush theme in subject as well. Specifically, along the bottom row we have dandelions; a zigzag print that is reminiscent of ocean waves; and …. cameras. Cameras, holidays and summer really are inseparable thoughts, aren’t they?!

The Hazy Days Fabric Mosaic

To capture the colours and feel of the Hazy Days colour palette, I chose tan stripes to represent the colours of the sand. Turned on its side, this fabric could also represent the ripples that form on the beach.

I chose a fabric of graphic squares with a fanned pattern to reflect the spokes of the shade umbrella in the photo. I also emphasised the life saver’s buoy with two fabrics featuring circles and a third with a vivid orange lattice.

The red-orange and turquoise small-print fabrics were chosen to complete the colour way and provide contrast in scale and complexity. Of course, the blue and aqua wave fabric had to be included to represent the ocean. I even rejoiced at the grey of the background in the middle fabric, because it captures the toned-down palette of the original photo. Overall, I think this collection has a good mix of scale and shape contrasts. Love the colours, love the visual texture!

Hazy Days colour scheme by Clever Chameleon — Hazy Days fabric mosaic

This is my second entry to the Summer Crush fabric mosaic contest.

sail boat fabric And the fabric I’d love to put on the back? Sailboats, whales, gulls, and waves in cream on a dark teal blue background by Charley Harper for Birch Fabrics. And its even organic cotton! Whoop!

Final thoughts

As you can see, although I started with two entirely different photos and even two quite divergent colour palettes, I have ended up with two mosaics that could be combined without clashing. One fabric even is in both mosaics! If you like either of these fabric combinations, head over to Quilt Sandwich Fabrics and check out the fabrics for yourself.

Hazy Days colour scheme with fabrics

Summer Crush Mosaic Colour Inspiration Week

If you want to follow my musings around the Summer Crush mosaic contest for the rest of the week, here are the other three days of mosaics:

On Tuesday we looked at the colours of Ice-cream Tones. Pinks and yellows, with a little brown and blue added for interest.

On Wednesday we explored the freshness of the colours seen in ripe pineapples and tropical beaches. Find out why I called this palette “Digging for Pineapples“!

On Thursday we channeled our inner child and played with this fun flamingo. Hot pinks and blue-greens were the order of the day in the bright and happy colours of Flamingoes in the Pool.

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 to use the photos, but I love to give credit where credit is due, and am always grateful to people who contribute to open source communities. So I would like you to know that the Hazy Days photo was provided by Ludde Lorentz via Unsplash, and the cocktails photos was provided by Monika Grabkowska. Be sure to check out their collections of freely gifted photos on Unsplash.com.
Ludde Lorentz
Monika Grabkowska

For colour inspiration for your quilts in your inbox weekly follow along by subscribing to this blog. Or follow Clever Chameleon Quilt Colour Inspiration on Pinterest and pin your favourite colour palettes to try later.

P.S. If you would like to use any photo featured in Colour Inspiration Tuesday 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.