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 19, 2017January 19, 2024

Everyday Quilt Inspiration: Picnic Quilt Revisit

31 Days of Finding Quilt Inspiration in Real Life

Last week I wrote about a long held ambition to make one or more picnic quilts modelled on children’s games. And there was one game that I mentioned that then stuck in my mind. Not because I particularly wanted to make it. But because I wasn’t sure how I would make it. The challenge of the how kept wandering through my head. 🙂

Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday: Day 19

The game, and the picnic quilt idea in question, is hopscotch. The design is simple. Hopscotch layouts are made up of easily pieced, large blocks, with one semi circle that could be appliquéd on. Appliqué the numbers on, and its done! Except…..

Except that hopscotch is long and skinny. Like a bed quilt. And you really do not need to be handing out free passes for hopscotch on the bed, right? 🙂

So, how to make it square like a good picnic quilt? Do I just fill in the rest of the quilt with cute pictures or prints? Seems like a lot of extra work for no real gain except size and shape.

How was I inspired to further the hopscotch picnic quilt idea?

Eventually I came up with a design that I think I like. Two hopscotch fields side by side. Twice as much fun, and half as much waiting! Yay!

And now that it’s square, I could put a noughts and crosses (Tic Tac Toe) board on the other side. The brilliant thing about pairing these two games is that neither needs playing official pieces. Stones/pinecones will do for hopscotch markers, and sticks, stones or leaves or any number of things can be substituted for Xs and Os, as long as you have two distinct sets.

One last happy thought I had about the Tic Tac Toe board is that it has territorial boundaries for children to sit within. Great for kids who have a tendency to squabble about others encroaching on their space while they are eating lunch….. not that that would ever happen on a fun family outing…..

All that said, I still think I want to try making a backgammon board picnic quilt first! Then I’ll have to teach my kids how to play. 🙂

Backgammon board quilt design — There are lots of subtle ways you can personalise a backgammon board. into a picnic quilt.

Do you have a favourite board game that would make a brilliant picnic quilt? Share your idea with us – we’d love to know.

P.S. If you’d like to find the Everyday Quilt Inspiration series from the beginning, it all starts here.

October 18, 2017January 19, 2024

Everyday Quilt Inspiration: Emoji

31 Days of Finding Quilt Inspiration in Real Life

What could be more everyday inspiration these days than Emoji?!? They are everywhere. On your phone, on social media, in advertising, on fridge magnets, stickers, tattoos, cushions…. 🙂 here…… You name it, someone has probably stuck a smiley face on it. Do you know where Emoji started? You might be as surprised at their long history as at their very recent rocket to fame.

Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday: Day 18

My daughter bought the emoji cushion pictured above while we were living in Germany. All the other kids had a cushion on their chair at school, but initially she didn’t want to conform. At home in Australia she didn’t have a cushion on her chair at school. So at the time, even something so simple seemed to be a threat to her identity and a source of homesickness. But in the Christmas Markets we found familiar and happy faces…… She chose the expression she wanted. I am not sure I would have been comfortable at sitting on this particular face, but she was happy. I should probably just be thankful she didn’t choose the poop emoticon…. LOL

How am I inspired by Emoji?

You could have a lot of quilt fun with emoji-like pictures, and get in some appliqué practice at the same time. Draw up your own series of yellow faces, turn them into appliqué squares and put them together quilt-as-you-go. Here’s an example of a design I would enjoy making. I have coloured it using classic yellow emoji and my great aunt’s garden as inspiration.

Smiley face quilt design — Smiley-face quilt inspiration

There are all sorts of icons now recognised within the emoji family – including animal, food, flags, activity, travel and object emoji. Here’s one guide to a vast array of Emoji for inspiration. Just remember, existing pictures are subject to copyright, so don’t cut and paste willy-nilly. But thanks to the simple nature of emoji, and the public nature of the general idea, you can easily draw your own variations.

I hope this inspiration has put a smile on your dial. A smiley-face quilt would be very easy to create, and would make a fun addition to a young person’s bedroom. If I wasn’t already in the process of making my daughter a quilt, this would stand a chance of getting made!

P.S. Did you know that there is such a thing as World Emoji Day?!? Yes. Really. 🙂 17th of July.

P.S. Have missed being a part of many linkys while we were away – it was just too hard without reliable internet. So glad to be linking up again with:
Main Crush Monday, Sew Can Do, The Inquiring Quilter (I’m featured this week – check it out!!), The Quilting Room with Mel, Freemotion by the River, My Quilt Infatuation, Crazy Mom Quilts.

P.P.S. Find the start of my 31 Days of Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday here.

See you tomorrow! 🙂

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!