Everyday Quilt Inspiration: Quangdong Christmas

Quangdong Christmas color scheme from Clever Chameleon

31 Days of Finding Quilt Inspiration in Real Life

Do you know what the picture above is?!

It’s a ripe quangdong. An Australian native fruit. I took this photo in Arkaroola (a desert oasis in South Australia) in early October, two years ago. Isn’t the fruit glorious looking? And doesn’t it scream Christmas?!!!

cracked quangdong seed — The kernel inside

Quangdongs have a thin dry flesh surrounding a large dimpled seed.

The kernel inside the quangdong seed is known as a candle nut. The seed has a high enough oil content that you can light it and it will burn like a candle. Candles also make me think of Christmas. Especially after spending last Christmas in Europe.

quangdong seed burning — Quangdong seed candle

Quangdong flesh is awful to eat raw. However, if you dry quangdong, it magically becomes delicious. You can eat it just as it is, or turn it into jam or pie or whatever you desire. It tastes a little like rhubarb, but less sour. Mmmmm.

Quangdong Pie — Quangdong pie from a café in Quorn

Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday: Day 28

I found my quangdong photos while still looking for the quilt photos I mentioned yesterday. It turns out that looking through old photos is a great way to find quilt inspiration. It happened to me yesterday as well!

Finding these shots is fortuitous. I needed an easy post today, because I have spent all my blogging time playing with ideas for a new Christmas tree decoration instead! I am going to be joining in the Ornament Exchange blog hop in November and I’ve been trying a few things out. So it seems apt that I tell you about my Christmasy quangdong inspiration today.

How was I inspired by the quangdong?

The reason why I took a whole set of photos of quangdongs two years ago was because I thought they would make amazing quilted postcard designs to use as Christmas cards. Especially for my overseas friends.

Appliqué the fruit and leaf shapes onto postcard sized quilts and then do a stack of fun thread painting over them. Or maybe draw them with Inktense and then thread paint. Sadly I haven’t got around to making the postcards yet, but time has not diminished the desire too. Every time I see these photos I think I must do this project one day.

Do you make quilted postcards? Where do you find your inspiration for them?

Or have you accidentally been inspired to make a quilt while looking through old photos? I would love to hear your stories. 🙂

P..S. If you are new to the 31 Days of Finding Quilt Inspiration series you can now binge read it…. access it through the first post, or follow me on Bloglovin’ to catch up on 4 weeks of everyday quilt inspiration.

P.P..S. You’ll be glad to know, I finally found the quilt photos I was after. I hope to tell you about them tomorrow. Take care until then!

October 21, 2017January 19, 2024

Everyday Quilt Inspiration: Batik Prints

31 Days of Finding Quilt Inspiration in Real Life

Well, here we are two thirds of the way through October and the Write 31 Days challenge. And I have to admit to being a little blogged out this morning. Writing everyday beyond October will not be for me. I long to get back to spending a larger proportion of my time sewing. This attitude probably isn’t being helped by the fact that I am itching to turn some of the ideas that have popped up in this series into real quilts! Where to start!!!?

Anyway, because I am feeling a little done with generating ideas, I paused today and reflected on what other topics are relevant to my challenge. And I think it might be time to turn to some examples of quilts I own and look at the ideas that inspired them. Something less theoretical and more tangible. I can do this now that we are home again and back into routine. Yay!!

Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday: Day 21

It doesn’t hurt to get jaded sometimes….. jade is a very pretty colour after all! 🙂 And one of the prettiest quilts I have been given is also the only quilt I own made specifically for me, by someone other than me. It is dark jade and rainbow. Here is my birthday gift from a while back from a beautiful friend, Susan.

Lotus batik quilt — My lotus batik quilt from Susan

Susan is one of the friends I have made through quilting, and is an amazing wizard with colour. If I ever need colour advise, Susan will always have an idea tucked away that will help me out.

How one batik inspired a whole quilt

Let me tell you how this quilt came to be…. Susan bought a small piece of the rainbow lotus batik as an impulse purchase simply because she loved it. That seems like a great reason to me!

Lotus batik fabrik

But she didn’t want it to end up in stash, so she took the dominant lotus shape from the batik pattern and turned it into an appliqué shape.

Lotus appliqué shape — Raw-edge lotus appliqué

She secured the appliqués with a small zigzag in clear thread. The stitching is nearly invisible. Some shuffling of the squares, including some sneaky discussions with me about the layout, ensued. And the blocks were stitched together lickety-split.

And she ended up with the quilt that now has pride of place in my dining room. 🙂 This precious quilt of love would be in my sewing room, but there is very little wall space in there with 2 walls that are mostly windows and the third wall actually being mostly double doors.

So that is the story of the inspiration behind the lotus batik quilt. Simple, but enormously effective. Thank you, dear Susan!!

Have you used a fabric as the starting point for a quilt like this? If so, I’d love to know.

You could also extend this idea to generate quilting designs. Big, edge-to-edge lotuses would be lots of fun.

And speaking of fun – if you have missed any of my 31 Days of Everyday Quilt Inspiration series you can find the up-to-date list of links at the bottom of the first post.

Hope to see you again tomorrow!

October 20, 2017January 19, 2024

Everyday Quilt Inspiration: Frangipani Colours

31 Days of Finding Quilt Inspiration in Real Life

In exploring my 31 Day Quilt Inspiration series, I am having a lot of fun making colour boards from my own happy snaps. I am primarily choosing pictures that mean something to me, and while I try not to pick the really blurry ones, I am deliberately not getting hung up about technical perfection either.

And you can do this too. But what do you do when a picture you like doesn’t convey the colours that you remember (accurately or otherwise)?!

Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday: Day 20

As I was going through pictures I took in Vanuatu on our last work trip, I found a photo with colours and a story that I liked….. Or at least colours I thought I liked!

Frangipani in a bowl — Frangipanis – a sweet gift from my young daughter in Vanuatu

On the first Sunday that we were in Vanuatu, Paul took our daughter to the local church while my son and I, who were feeling a little poorly, stayed home. On her return, my lovely daughter gave me two frangipanis that she had picked. They were already looking a little worse for wear, but they still looked pretty in a bowl I found in the cupboard. So I took a quick photo.

When I found this photo among our snaps, I felt happy because I remembered how my daughter had brought me the flowers. And I remembered how sweet the blooms looked in the little bowl of water, despite their slight rough handling. So I thought: “I will make a pretty colours board”.

Only, when I tried, I discovered something. The colours that I remember, and the colours that I thought I could see in the photo, just aren’t there! This is what’s really there:

frangipani1 — The actual frangipani colours present in the hastily taken photo.

It is funny how the brain interprets things. It plays tricks on you! Sees things that are not there. Colours are a prime example of this, and it can be tricky to get your head around actual colours vs perceived colours. This is in part because colours in real life are affected by lighting and shadows. Our brains and eyes compensate for light levels better than my camera does on “automatic”.

Furthermore, the brain uses colour shifts to confer three dimensions, form and texture onto 2D images. So often we don’t consciously acknowledge colour change across an object. We see it as shape. This is a powerful tool to use when drawing an image, but a tough adversary when trying to deconstruct one. At least, I find it tricky sometimes.

How was I inspired to find a set of frangipani colours that I can use?

I don’t want to make a project in the colours that are actually in the frangipani photo. They are dull and uninteresting to me. I want to make colours like I think I see. Like this:

frangipani2 — These are the colours I remember, and the colours I saw until I started analysing the photo!

As you can see from the board above, the colours I perceive are much purer tones than the shades that are actually in the photo. My colour list and the frangipani photo do not belong together.

So, the easiest fix in this situation is to simply choose the brighter, lighter hues and tints of the real colours. But if you do not feel confident extending your inspiration so far from the source, there is another way. Edit your photos with one of the many software packages that allow you to change the exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows and saturation etc of your picture. You don’t need to buy an editor. Tech Radar has kindly provided you a summary of the best free photo editors currently available in 2017 . My husband and I have been fans of GIMP for many years, the program that made the top of Tech Radar’s list. But for a quick edit, a simple program like Preview can do the trick too.

screen shot using Preview — Adjusting colours using Preview’s Adjust Color function

Once you have the effect you want, you can pick out the colours from your happier happy snap. 🙂 Oh joy!

Frangipani Colours color scheme from Clever Chameleon — The colour board from my digitally altered photo is very close to the original vision I had from my memories.

And there you have it…. another tool under your belt for using your everyday experiences as quilt inspiration.

See you for more fun tomorrow!

P.S. Do you remember how I said I thought that pineapples were stalking me? Well, it’s possible that they are not after me specifically…. it’s possible that they are methodically turning all quilters into their minions….. hahahaha just being silly, but now I have your attention back, I want to tell you that I just found a really nice post about a pineapple art quilt at Pretty Piney. The pineapples insist you take a look….. 🙂

Enjoy!

P.P.S. Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts

October 17, 2017January 19, 2024

Colour Inspiration Tuesday Collection 3

Colour Inspiration Tuesday Collection Number 3

Welcome to the third collection of Colour Inspiration Tuesday mood boards. Actually, these are not exclusively Colour Inspiration “Tuesday” boards…. they are mostly Colour Inspiration “Everyday” boards. Because October has been Write 31 Days month and I am exploring the theme finding quilt inspiration in the everyday. So, I have been sharing colour boards whenever inspiration strikes. But it would be silly to discriminate by birthday, so I hereby declare them to all be Colour Inspiration Tuesday colour schemes, and so therefore this is Colour Inspiration Tuesday Collection 3.

A quick summary of the ideas behind Colour Inspiration Tuesday Collection 3…..

In amongst the latest colour boards, we have explored 2 quilt designs, a hermit crab appliqué idea and two free-motion quilting designs. I even stitched out the strawberry vines FMQ design for you. Now that I am home again, I might try to whip up an example of Nervous Plant FMQ as well, but I have more pressing quilting matters at hand first.

Hot Chocolate led to a quilt design concept for a black, white and red quilt that I am going to make for the Splash of Color QAL. I will be sharing the next stage of this process very soon. The other quilt design in this set is from Pandanus Fruit, and was more of a theoretical exercise. I have no immediate plans to make this quilt, as fun as it would be!

My Hermit Crab appliqué idea looks like this. Wouldn’t he make a fun motif for someone who likes hermit crabs? I have a particular friend in mind for this one, so he stands a chance of actually getting done one day.

Hermit Crab appliqué idea from Clever Chameleon

The Third Colour Inspiration Tuesday Collection

To access the colour palettes and complete posts of Colour Inspiration Tuesday Collection 3, click on the thumbnails below.

Follow along and be the first with the free inspiration!

Green Clever Chameleon logo I hope you feel inspired by some of the ideas in Colour Inspiration Tuesday Collection 3. If you missed the first 12 Colour Inspiration Tuesday colour schemes, you can find them here. And the second collection of 12 colour schemes is found here.

At Clever Chameleon we explore at least one potential quilt colour scheme every week. For the rest of October it is likely to continue to be considerably more. But November will see the return of our usual posting schedule of 2-3 posts per week, including one Colour Inspiration Tuesday slot and a tutorial or quilt-process related post nearer the end of the week. Follow Clever Chameleon Quilting on Bloglovin’ to stay abreast of all the fun quilty things I do and find on the internet. Or subscribe in the sidebar 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. Or my whole Pinterest account for a wider selection of quilt-related boards.

Linking up with: Let’s Bee Social, Midweek Makers, Can I get a Whoop Whoop? , Busy Hands Quilts, Crazy Mom Quilts

See you tomorrow for more Everyday Quilt Inspiration! Emoji!

October 15, 2017January 19, 2024

Everyday Quilt Inspiration: Poppies

31 Days of Finding Quilt Inspiration in Real Life

Today I did something a little bit different. I attended the unveiling of a new pair of plaques honouring all the war veterans who came/come from the Karoonda district. Karoonda is a small country town in South Australia where my only surviving great aunt lives. And where my maternal grandfather and grandmother first met and courted many decades ago.

Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday: Day 15

After travelling so much for the last two weeks, I was very grateful to share a ride to Karoonda (about an hour and half away) with my aunt, uncle and a cousin. As well as attending the memorial and unveiling ceremony, I was thrilled to visit my great aunt. Aunty Dorothy is the original rabid quilter in my family. As you can imagine, we always have a lot to talk about. I wish she lived closer!

When my great aunt is not quilting, she is gardening. And today her garden was a mass of spring flowers. Roses, irises and poppies. Lots and lots of beautiful poppies.

How was I inspired by the poppies?

After being away from home for 2 weeks, I have been a little surprised by Spring. It definitely arrived while we were away! And yesterday, Aunty’s garden was in full-bloom.

Poppies in Aunt Dorothy's garden — Poppies and more poppies!

Spring Poppies color scheme from Clever Chameleon — A colour board from Aunt Dorothy’s garden

So it seemed more than appropriate to do a Spring mood board from Aunty Dorothy’s garden.

But more relevant to the theme of today’s visit to Karoonda, it turns out that Aunty Dorothy also has a patch of Flanders Poppies that she grew from seeds gifted to her. Flanders Poppies are the distinctive red and black flowers from France that are now used widely in Anzac and Remembrance Day ceremonies in Australia. There weren’t many open Flanders Poppies to see in her garden, because she had donated them all to today’s ceremony.

Here is part of one of the new plaques. My Grandpa’s name is on there (F.A. Longmire, WWII). As is my Great Uncle Geoff’s (WWII) and a great-great uncle’s (WWI). A fourth very distant relative is also named, but the connection with him is many many generations back. I do know where he fits in the family forest thanks to someone else’s hard work, but I won’t bore you with the details.

More than just colour inspiration

Between the two new plaques is the main gate to the town’s oval. I was also quilt-inspired by these gates, with their plastic poppy tributes and rosemary attached.

Poppies on gate — Poppy and Rosemary tributes at the unveiling

This geometric design would make a great quilt border, especially adorned with poppy appliqués. It’s not often that I get inspired to make a quilt border without having a clue what the centre of the quilt should be. But that is the case this time!

What would you place in the middle of a quilt with a really strong, geometric border design like this? Do you have memorial traditions that would translate to a meaningful quilt?

Comments make my day and I and would love to know your ideas. Thanks for dropping by today. Hope to see you again tomorrow!

P.S. If you would like to know more about why Flanders Poppies mean so much to Australian Veterans, you can read a short story here. Rosemary is also a significant symbol for Anzac Day.

P.P.S. If you have not been following along with my 31 Days of Everyday Quilt Inspiration series, and would like to, you should start here.