Everyday Quilt Inspiration: Pandanus Fruit

Pandanus Fruit color scheme from Clever Chameleon

31 days of Finding Quilt Inspiration in Real Life

Aghhh. Slow internet! No internet! Slow internet! Great Intern….. Nope, dropped out again! That is the reality here the last 36 hours. Writing what I can offline… and then madly uploading if I see signal. So, I apologise for all the typos, comments ending up in the wrong place and other weird stuff …… I think I have only embarrassed myself once so far :(.  It’ll be a while before I take good internet at a sane time of day for granted again!

Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday: Day 4

tsunami escape sign
Tsunami escape route sign

The overwhelmed, under-spec and oh-so-vulnerable communications network here is the reason why our family is currently in Vanuatu. Hubby, Paul, is developing a cheap, easy to deploy, phone-based technology that will allow villages to maintain their own intra-village text-message services independently of cellular networks. We even hope to connect two neighbouring villages. We are aiming for a system that can provide rudimentary communications when the cellular network is down and where it doesn’t reach. Which is too often and in too many places. Vanuatu tops the natural disaster at risk list for the entire world – being vulnerable to earthquake, hurricane, volcano, and tsunami, with low capacity to prepare and rebuild.

Inspired by the Pandanus Fruit

Pandanus fruit
Unripe fruit on a Pandanus plant in Vanuatu

Yesterday and today we travelled out of Port Vila again to the two small villages where we are doing a pilot study of Paul’s telecommunications system. One of the very noticeable plants along the roadside out of Port Vila are the Pandanus trees, with their big green fruits the size of rockmelons (cantaloupe). Currently the fruits are unripe – they will turn a robust orange when they are edible. I have been told locally that they are good for pregnant women, although I didn’t find out why.

Anyway, it is solely the visual texture of these fruits that has aroused my interest today. I haven’t actually been able to touch one – they are too high up.

How was I inspired by the Pandanus Fruit?

Because the Pandanus Fruit has interesting shapes and textures, I was inspired to try an abstract representation that I could piece and appliqué.  Here is my Pandanus Fruit-inspired art quilt design:

Abstract pandanus quilt design by Clever Chameleon
Abstract pandanus quilt design

I used the colours I can see in my photo. I think the large background space would be good for some FMQ practice. Maybe try out some Vanuatu themed motifs.

Hope to see you again tomorrow!

P.S. If you missed the beginning of my 31 Days of Everyday Quilt Inspiration, you can find it here.

P.P.S. While I have internet, here is a picture of the telecommunications boxes we are installing and testing.

mesh extender on hut, Vanuatu
See the white box with the three antennas on the pole? That is the technology we are testing, installed  on the roof of a house in Vanuatu.

Everyday Quilt Inspiration: Nervous Plant

Nervous Flower color scheme from Clever Chameleon

31 days of Finding Quilt Inspiration in Real Life

So.

I hope yesterday’s post didn’t sound too delirious. It was truly written on the fly – trying not to start from behind with the Write 31 Days challenge. Luckily I had already been contemplating writing about the bedroom décor here in Vanuatu and how it relates to my Splash of Color quilt along plans! So there was already an idea seed waiting to sprout when I found out about the challenge. Today, I have had a bit more thinking time to prepare this post, although no more writing time.

Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday: Day 2

Today we travelled out of Port Vila to a small village where we are going to be doing a pilot study of emergency telecommunications equipment my husband is inventing. We met the Chief and Elders of the village and explained in a public meeting how we would like to install the equipment in their vicinity and train them to use it in return for feedback on how to improve it to meet their needs. It has been a productive and interesting day.

Travelling to and from the village today has given me some quiet time to simply observe the colours and textures around me. Combinations that I wouldn’t normally see at home – that belong to other people’s everyday. Brightly coloured houses. Thatched roofs. Woven reed walls. Tropical lagoon colours. And bright tropical flowers. Lots of ideas to process here over the next few days. 🙂

Discovering the Vanuatu Nervous Plant!

One of the most fun things we saw today was an insignificant-looking plant that I would have never noticed on my own. Even though I am actively looking for blog inspiration. While we stopped for a short break on the roadside on the way home to Port Vila, a colleague who has travelled the Pacific Nations for many years showed us the Nervous Plant. This plant immediately closes its leaves at the slightest touch of a finger. If you poke it again it will shrink back even further from you, towards the ground. It is truly remarkable how mobile this plant is. I should try to get some video of it another day…. today I only have photos to share.

Nervous plant, Vanuatu
Nervous Plant, Vanuatu. Before being touched.
Nervous plant, Vanuatu
Same Nervous Plant, seconds later, after being touched.

How was I inspired by the Nervous Plant?

It strikes me that I can free-motion quilt the Nervous Plant. It would make a pretty background fill design. There are a number of elements to make up the design – the feathery leaves (open and closed), the pom-pom flowers and the flower buds. I have sketched my initial idea for you with pencil on paper…..

Nervous Plant inspired FMQ design
Nervous Plant inspired FMQ design

These are relatively simple shapes that a confident beginner could put together on a continuous line. You can quilt this design as densely or loosely as you liked, depending on how soft you want your quilt to be. More experienced quilters can also modify this idea to pack the leaves together tightly to generate a dense uniform background fill design. 

I hope you have enjoyed learning about the Nervous Plant as much I enjoyed discovering it today. And that you might find a use for its pretty colours or it’s cute little leaves in a project one day. See you again tomorrow!

P.S. You can find the start of my 31 Days of Everyday Quilt Inspiration blog post series here. And you can find the Write 31 Days website here, for hundreds more 31-day series on all sorts of topics. Enjoy!

Write 31 Days: Everyday Quilt Inspiration

Vanuatu Décor color scheme by Clever Chameleon

Welcome to 31 Days of Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday

The Write 31 Days Blog Challenge, Day 1

Surprise! It’s only Sunday and I’m baaaack…..

I was reading the Days Filled with Joy blog earlier today, and Joy said she was not going to do her usual Finishing Stitches linky for October, because she was joining in the Write 31 Days Challenge. And I went: “What’s the Write 31 Days Challenge?”, and clicked on that link…..

So, it turns out, it is a one-month challenge to blog daily. Now, I have no intention of becoming a long term once-a-day blogger. Or I’d get no sewing done at all. And I’m pretty sure you also don’t need that much of me in your inbox either! (Please forgive me for a month! 🙂 ) But it so just happens that I am away from my sewing machine for half of October, and I have an idea that would be fun to try for a little while. Also, I do tend to write long posts and it would be good to practice “less is more” occasionally.

So, I have made an impromptu and perhaps rash decision to join the Write 31 Days challenge. I am currently in Vanuatu for work, and the internet here varies from fine to appalling and back again without warning, so I am not even sure if this is possible. But I will try. I may have to write offline some days and post in batches as the internet allows. The main complication is that it starts Today! And as I draft this I am not signed up and I have no internet……

My Write 31 Day Topic: Everyday Quilt Inspiration

Anyway, my Write 31 Days series will be about finding quilt design/colour inspiration around us in the everyday. Today it is colours.. But it might be shapes, themes, motifs on other days…. wherever the imagination goes. This should actually be quite fun. And I think it is a good flip-side to Colour Inspiration Tuesday. I use professional photos for Colour Inspiration Tuesday because I can make pretty pins and headers out of them. And I do love them. But I can’t/don’t take photos like those. However, there is no reason why the photography skills I do have can’t be enough to convey the quilt/colour ideas that I often see around me. And there is no reason why you can’t use your happy snaps and incidental casual observations for inspiration either…. So let’s explore finding quilt/craft inspiration in real life for a month! I hope you’ll join me.

Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday: Day 1

Red, Teal and Brown: décor inspiration

Vanuatu Décor color scheme from Clever Chameleon Because today’s post is being created at rather short notice (and I will be hoping for internet later to upload this), I am going to start my 31 everyday quilt design series in familiar territory. With a colour board. Today’s inspiration colours are red, teal-blue, coffee, dark chocolate and off-white. Teal and red are complimentary colours (opposite positions on the colour wheel), so look good together with or without the addition of neutrals.

Everyday quilt inspiration in rented accomodation
Tip 1: find everyday colour inspiration in rented accomodation furnishings

Today’s photo is a snap of the décor in our bedroom in the rented concrete block house we are living in in Port Vila. It is a modest house, comfortable and designed to be lived in rather than holidayed in. One of the things I appreciate most about our accommodation is that the play areas are designed so that children behaving reasonably can safely roam and play without constant supervision. No pools or waterfront or other inherently deadly areas.

Décor is a very good place to look for everyday quilt inspiration, especially colour. There are often professional influences in décor choices, even if it only within the fabric prints. In paying attention here, you are using someone else’s knowledge and experience to help guide your own design process. That’s called working smarter!

Why was I inspired by this décor?

I was struck by these particular décor colours because only days before we got here, I posted about using red and teal with black and white for my next quilt design that will be part of the Splash of Color quilt-along. That post was called Hot Chocolate and you can find it here. Today’s colour board is going straight to my ideas folder for when I get around to designing my Vanuatu quilt for the Splash of Color quilt-along!

red Clever Chameleon logoSo there you have it….. my first everyday quilt inspiration post for the Write 31 Days challenge! Hope to see you again tomorrow!

Have you got décor around you that inspires a quilt you would love? Let us know in the comments!

 

P.S. Links to the posts in my 31 everyday quilt inspiration ideas series will appear here as they are published.

Week1

Day 1:  Red, Teal & Brown décor – inspiration from furnishings (you are here, at the very beginning)
Day 2: The Nervous Plant – inspiration for free-motion quilting
Day 3: Modern Hexagon Print – trapunto inspiration in fabric
Day 4: Pandanus Fruit – inspiration for an abstract quilt design
Day 5: Hermit Crabs – inspiration for appliqué
Day 6: Coconut Lorikeets – more inspiration for appliqué
Day 7: Mt. Yasur Volcano – colour inspiration less ordinary

Week 2

Day 8: Tanna Island Quilt – more volcano quilt inspiration
Day 9: Picnic Play Quilt – inspiration from board games
Day 10: Sunsets and Silhouettes – colour inspiration
Day 11: Barking Geckos – silhouette appliqué and FMQ
Day 12: Pineapples – inspiration from artworks around you
Days 13: Art with Fabric blog hop – inspiration from professional artists
Day 14: Book and Movie Characters – fandom inspiration

Week 3

Day 15: Flanders Poppies – quilt border inspiration
Day 16: Fellow Quilters – quilting is more fun as a shared passion
Day 17: Inspiration Round-Up – Colour Inspiration Tuesday Collection 3
Day 18: Emoji! – inspiration from your social media
Day 19: More Picnic Quilts – hopscotch, tic tac toe and backgammon
Day 20: Frangipani Colours – how to get better colours from your happy snaps
Day 21: Lotus Batik Quilt – appliqué inspiration from fabric

Week 4

Day 22: Kaleidoscope Mini Quilt – inspiration from previous quilts
Day 23: Quilted Clock – inspiration from sentimental scraps
Day 24: Bougainvillea Surprise – inspiration from observation
Day 25: Vanuatu Turtle Quilt – more appliqué inspiration from fabrics
Day 26: Necessity and Constraints – sometimes less is more inspirational
Day 27: Children’s Drawings – and how to get them onto a quilt
Day 28: Old Photos: inspiration for quilted postcards

Week 5

Day 29: Trash or Treasure? – inspiration from your friends’ fabric scraps
Day 30: Magnification – inspiration in the smallest of things
Day 31: Inspiration Roundup – Colour Inspiration Tuesday Collection 4 and a look back at our 31 Day series

P.P..S. Linking up with: Main Crush Monday, Crazy Mom Quilts. The Quilting Room with Mel