December 2017 Roundup

December 2017 at Clever Chameleon

One Monthly Goal Check-in and December 2017 Roundup

At the beginning of December I nominated my ongoing Vanuatu Turtle Quilt for my specific One Monthly Goal at Elm Street Quilts. The finished quilt is not due to be linked up at Busy Hands Quilts’ Splash of Color quilt along until January 16. But I know that quilt construction has a habit of expanding to take up all available time. And I want the Vanuatu Turtle quilt done so that I can get on with some other really interesting projects in January. So I decided to bring the “deadline” forward to the 31st December.

So, I am glad to report that the Vanuatu Turtle is finished! 🙂 It measures 60″ square.

Vanuatu Turtle Quilt by Clever Chameleon

Thank you to my dearest husband who eventually managed to help me get this photo under natural light.

I think I may have an opening for a new quilt holder-upperer ….. at first DH was holding this quilt not only upside down but also back-to-front. I honestly thought he was just being facetious……. But, apparently, no. And he swears he reads the blog…..

Vanuatu Turtle Quilt

So there we have it. A finished memento from our family’s work trip to Vanuatu. I’m thankful to Myra of Busy Hands Quilts for running the Splash of Color quit along this year, as without it, the Vanuatu Turtle Quilt would likely never have happened. It would still be like the throw quilt I mean to make from some fabrics I bought in Thailand 3 years ago….

The Vanuatu Quilt – blow by blow

If you’d like to go back and read about the conception, design and construction of the Vanuatu Turtle quilt, here are the relevant posts in order:

Where the Vanuatu Quilt concept started
More about the fabrics and the turtle appliqué pieces cut
Designing the black and white background on the fly
Finishing the black and white quilt top
Adding the first layer of the turtle appliqué
Adding the second layer of the turtle appliqué
Quilting design for the Vanuatu Turtle quilt

I said I was going to find out what being finished early feels like. So. What does it feel like to be done before the last minute? Weird. And slightly sad – I have liked working on this quilt and now it’s over. Perhaps the gasping sense of relief of going down to the wire has its upsides after all! hahahaha. Don’t worry, the melancholy hasn’t lasted – I have so many other projects to turn to. I have already done some therapy fabric cutting today. And not on the project I should be working on either. See, that’s better!

What else happened at Clever Chameleon in December 2017?

Well, we had another 4 Colour Inspiration Tuesdays.

Week 1

We explored the colours of a fake-looking Australian plant called the Wax Flower Plant or Hoya. And we used it as a launch point for a Christmas decoration made of couched thread and beads. Not strictly quilting, but it is a method I use for embellishing quilts, and these ornaments are a good way to get your hand in with this technique.

Christmas Stars color scheme from Clever Chameleon — Christmas Star colour scheme

Christmas Star Ornament — Christmas Star couched thread ornament

This post was a full tutorial, and showed how to make Christmas Trees and Christmas Bells as well.

Week 2

In the second week of December, Kathy of Tamarack Shack Longarm Quilting shared a tip about chalk being visible under blacklight. So I got all excited and the testing of this tip resulted in a blue colour scheme.

Blacklight Blue colour scheme from Clever Chameleon — Blacklight Blue colour scheme

And I received my own blacklight for Christmas. So now I can play with this technique some more. Sweet husbands who can’t tell the front of a quilt from the back still have their uses. hahahahaha. Thanks dearest!

Week 3

I was reading the newsletter from our local state Botanic Garden when I discovered the strangest flower I have possibly ever seen. This flower quacks me up, so I had to feature it on Colour Inspiration Tuesday!

Flying Duck Orchid color scheme from Clever Chameleon — Flying Duck Orchid colour scheme

Flying Duck Orchid colour scheme from Clever Chameleon

I would like to have the time to turn this flower into an appliqué at some point. Just for fun. The flying duck shape of this Australian native orchid is just the start of the strangeness – you can read more about this flower here.

Week 4

This was only yesterday – and we celebrated the colour red in all its glory. This is because we are leading up to the 2018 Monthly Color Challenge. And the first colour off the rank will be red.

Red colour scheme from Clever Chameleon — January is Red colour scheme

Beyond Colour Inspiration Tuesdays

What else happened at Clever Chameleon in December 2017? Well, lots of Vanuatu Turtle quilt construction, but we’ve already covered that. Probably the only thing of note we haven’t covered is that the Vanuatu Turtle quilting post includes a mini tutorial on how to freemotion quilt hibiscus flowers.

I also extended the couched thread Christmas Ornament tutorial to include a fourth variation – a glittery bauble. This was a guest post on Days Filled with Joy blog.

And we have been getting organised to start 2018 at full speed with the Beary Colourful BOM – part of the Monthly Color Challenge at Patterns by Jen.

I hope you will be joining us for this one!

100 Posts!

So, that was December 2017. And this is my 100th post since I started blogging back on the 26th April. It seems very fitting to be able to report a complete quilt finish for my 100th post!

Oh boy, the things I have learned since I launched this blog! And all the amazing people I have “met”! Thank you to all of you for reading my blog and a special thank you to all the people who have connected in some way. I hope that 2018 is going to be a year of great things!

I’m now off to share my December OMG success on Elm Street Quilts.

P.S. In the next few days I also hope to also be participating in several end of year linkys. In particular, Cheryl of Meadow in the Mist is holding a Best of 2017 Linky Party. You might like to head over there now. A collection of the year’s best quilt blog posts ought to be really good reading! And there are several other goal-setting linkys for 2018 which I’d like to sit down and muse over if I can find the time.

P.P.S Also sharing on Freemotion by the River, Quilt Fabrication, Sew Fresh Quilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Inquiring Quilter, Crazy Mom Quilts, Busy Hands Quilts. and a new linky: Powered by Quilting

P.P.P.S. This post has now been linked up with the Last Splash of Color linky.

Would you like to keep in touch with Clever Chameleon and the fun quilty ideas I design as well as find all over the internet? You can follow directly for email updates, or through Bloglovin’, Pinterest or FB. All your follow options can be found here. Thanks for your support!

November 30, 2017January 19, 2024

November 2017 Roundup

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.

October 31, 2017January 19, 2024

Colour Inspiration Tuesday Collection 4

Colour Inspiration Tuesday Collection 4 from Clever Chameleon

Colour Inspiration Tuesday, 31 Days of Everyday Quilt Inspiration Finale and October 2017 Roundup, all in one!!!

Well!

Today is the last day of the 2017 Write 31 Days bloggers’ challenge! I’m actually not sure how I feel about that! A little sad…. A little joyous! Lost….. Free….. Excited…. Tired. It was a lot of work, but it was worth it.

I learned a lot. About myself, about quilting, about the world around me, about blogging. I noticed things I normally pass by and learned more about those things so that I could write about them. I found others’ blog posts on related topics. My blog post writing speed is now faster; and for better or worse, my posts are probably sounding more like the unedited me. I really hope you enjoyed the series and got something out of it. If you have been reading along – faithfully or sporadically – Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday: Day 31

It seems fitting that today being both a Colour Inspiration Tuesday and the last day of my 31 Days of Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday series, that we should be due for another Colour Inspiration Tuesday Collection. Another set of 12 mood boards to inspire your crafts and quilts.

Colour Inspiration Tuesday Collection 4

A quick summary of the ideas behind Colour Inspiration Tuesday Collection 4…..

Since the last Colour Inspiration Tuesday Collection we have used colour boards as a springboard to talk about getting the colours you want from your photos, how the contrast between a silhouette and a sunset makes the colours more brilliant, and how magnifying the things around you can give you a whole new perspective.

There was a new quilt design and a revisit of an old one.

Revisit: Sunset Wall quilt design, coloured three ways

There was also one quilting design in the mix: Bougainvillea Surprise.

The Fourth Colour Inspiration Tuesday Collection

To access the colour palettes and complete posts of Colour Inspiration Tuesday Collection 4, click on the thumbnails below.

Beyond mood boards and their associated posts

But October 2017 was so much more than just mood boards! We had a tutorial on Shadow Trapunto, joined in the Art with Fabric Blog Hop and met my great aunt.

Pacific Cleaner Shrimp art quilt — Art with Fabric blog hop

We looked at lots of quilt design ideas. In addition to the two from Colour Inspiration Tuesday Collection 4, there were 5 others of note.

There were two discussions about appliqué inspiration, including a free downloadable file of 6 gecko shapes.

Hermit crab appliqué — Hermit crab design

And we also explored the ideas that have inspired some of my quilts in the past. Here are two of my favourites.

Children's Drawings — Children’s Drawings

fabric scrap quilt — Other People’s Scraps

Even after all of these, there were still plenty more ideas…. For more colours from October visit Colour Inspiration Tuesday Collection 3. For the entire 31 Days of Everyday Quilt Inspiration series, start here. This latter post contains the complete list of links to the whole series.

Staying Connected

I hope you had a wonderful October. I sure did, although I hope you managed to fit in more quilting or sewing than me. And I also wish you all the best for a November full of blessings.

This coming month I will be sharing tutorials for two Christmas tree decorations made primarily of fabric and other scraps from my quilting adventures. One of these will be part of a much bigger project – the 2017 Ornament Exchange, with tutorials from 47 different bloggers. If you don’t want to miss these, sign up for email reminders on the sidebar or follow along on Bloglovin’. We will also be revisiting the Splash of Color Quilt Along at some point soon.

If you like colour inspiration, you can find all my previous mood boards anytime in one easy location on the main menu. Or keep an eye on my Pinterest account.

So that was October. November awaits, ready or not! See you there!

P.S. Now that I have finished my own 31 day blog series, I will have more time to catch up with some of the other writers who participated. Have you read any of the other Write 31 Days series from this year? Would you recommend any?

I can recommend an excellent series to you. My blog friend Joy from “Days Filled with Joy” wrote a fantastic series on 31 Days of Earning from Sewing and Quilting! It’s all about how to turn your quilt hobby into cash and it’s very thoughtfully written. Joy is also an extremely lovely individual and has a nice community of quilt friends that interact regularly around her blog. Pop over, say hi and tell her I sent you. 🙂

P.P.S. Linky parties I enjoyed this week:
Cooking up Quilts, Love, Laugh, Quilt, The Quilting Room with Mel, FreeMotion by the River, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Crazy Mom Quilts.

September 29, 2017January 19, 2024

September 2017 Roundup

September 2017 Roundup at Clever Chameleon

How did September go for you? I hope you had a good month and managed to fit in some quilting, sewing or other favourite creative pursuit.

At the beginning of this month I signed up for the first time to Elm Street Quilters One Monthly Goal. The idea is that if I have a deadline, things happen. And this month, having a deadline has definitely helped. Because with everything else that has been going on there is no way I would have otherwise touched my nominated UFO this month.

So, for my September 2017 OMG, I set myself the tasks of finishing this patchwork quilt top for my daughter, then getting it basted and stabilised.

Jewel Tone Diamonds quilt in progress — Jewel Tone Diamonds quilt at the beginning of September. Follow the link for a tutorial on sewing the Y-seams on this quilt.

I did mention that I would like to get it quilted, but thankfully I didn’t set that as a goal, because it would have had to be chalked up as a miss. I am not rushing this one. And I definitely ran out of time!

Jewel Tone Diamonds finished quilt top — Jewel Tone Diamonds flimsy before layering, basting and quilting

Even with all those bias edges and Y-seams, the quilt top is pretty square! It will block up nicely. I am very pleased. It must be all the starch I used.

Jewel Tone Diamonds, basted

elephant batik

And here is a small portion of the back after I basted and stabilised with stitch in the ditch quilting along the zigzag rows. How adorable is the fabric my daughter chose for the backing? Elephant batik! Cute!

Jewel Tone Diamonds is a large single (twin) bed size quilt. Hopefully it will last my dear daughter well into her teens once the detailed quilting and the binding are done.

I am linking this post up with the OMG September Finish Link-up. This coming month is going to be too insane to add extra unnecessary deadlines, so sadly I will be sitting out the October One Monthly Goal.

What else has happened at Clever Chameleon in September?

We had 3 new Colour Inspiration Tuesdays. On Hoppy Tuesday, we had three colour boards and chatted about frog appliqué quilts. For Strawberry Vines we delved into some free-motion quilting inspiration, and for Hot Chocolate we geared up to join a black, white and colour quilt along (that you also still have time to join – don’t forget to check it out)

Hoppy Tuesday color scheme from Clever Chameleon — Hoppy Tuesday

Strawberry Vines colour scheme from Clever Chameleon — Strawberry Vines

Hot Chocolate colour scheme from Clever Chameleon — Hot Chocolate

We also had a look back at the next set of 12 mood boards from Colour Inspiration Tuesday, so that we can find them easily anytime. The Colour Inspiration Tuesday Collections are now also available directly from the main website menu. 🙂

Color Inspiration Tuesday collection 2 — Colour Inspiration Tuesday Collection 2

My daughter and I each had some excitement taking home a ribbon each from the Royal Adelaide Show. Mine for my pirate owl free-motion machine appliqué and my daughter for crochet.

Jaffas and Cream quilt

I also did a lot of quilting (by my standards) this month……. I did two charity quilts. Jaffas and Cream and also Bugs in my Garden. I also had a go at a trapunto design from Geta’s Quilting Studio and made it into a mini quilt.

And finally, I wrote up three posts with instructions on how to quilt some of my favourite free-motion motifs:

There was a discussion (with diagrams) about how to free-motion quilt strawberry leaves, strawberry flowers and strawberry berries on a continuous line of loop-de-loops.

There was a tutorial on how to use baking paper to quilt designs without marking them, with a downloadable flower template to try.

And I also provided a downloadable template on how to quilt all the critters and garden motifs that featured in my post about Bugs in my Garden free-motion quilting.

Bugs in my Garden quilting — flowers and suns

All of these tutorials were a lot of fun. If you missed any posts, be sure to check them out!

See you in October!

September was a very busy month at Clever Chameleon for sure. Especially when you add in the things I have also finished in advance so I can still play in blog land with you while we are working away from home.

I hope you found something of worth at Clever Chameleon in September. If you had a favourite post, I’d love to know.

Wishing you a wonderful October!

P.S. Linky parties I had a blast at this week:
Quilting Room with Mel, Sew Can Do, Quilt Fabrication, Sew Fresh Quilts, Crazy Mom Quilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Busy Hands Quilts, Love Laugh Quilt.
Click on the links to find lots and lots of quilt and craft projects from the last week or so.

September 3, 2017January 19, 2024

August 2017 Roundup

August 2017 Roundup at Clever Chameleon

I think that Joy, from the Days Filled with Joy blog has the right idea! Actually, she advocates two great quilting ideas….. attack your UFOs systematically and celebrate your progress every month. We easily forget the delight of our finishes all too soon, while those unfinished things can really grate. So I am going to try to start being more deliberate about remembering progress and also finishing some UFOs.

So, August 2017 at Clever Chameleon looked like this…..

we had 8 great Colour Inspiration Tuesdays, producing 10 great colour boards…… What?! “But there were only 5 Tuesdays in August”, I hear you say. Yes, but we had our first link up with Stitched in Color and we went a bit silly with the colour boards, didn’t we?! And it was Fun. My “Hazy Days” fabric mosaic even made the ten finalist entries in the Stitched in Color Summer Crush contest.

we had 3 great quilt ideas come out of Colour Inspiration Tuesday, and I seriously want to Do. Them. All! Digging for Pineapples generated a sentimental modern quilt idea that I want to do for me. The other two ideas have significant pattern potential. OK, so the UFOs might have to wait…..

we did some sewing…. I nearly finished the tumbling blocks quilt top for my daughter. Actually, I did finish the tumbling blocks patchwork, but then I decided I wanted to change a few things. so it is currently back in (several large) pieces….. 🙂

we did some quilting……. I finished a baby quilt for charity this month. I also stabilised two further charity quilts, so this was a big quilting month by my slowish standards.

we checked in on the Patchwork and Quilting Tailwind Tribe we started in July, and it is going very well. So far we have 18 members, and have generated over 220 shares and over 225 re-pins. Very pleased! Click here if you’d like to join.
we had a tutorial on sewing tumbling blocks patchwork and an in depth discussion about the up-sides of quilting printed fabric panels.

If you missed anything, be sure to check it out!

green Clever Chameleon logo So, a pretty busy month, now that I look back! Thanks for reading and being part of my motivation. I hope you found something of worth at Clever Chameleon in August. If you had a favourite post, I’d love to know.