The Chameleon thinks he’s vindicated!
Annoying!
That’s what it is… annoying…. when someone unashamedly thinks that they are the centre of the Universe, and then it turns out that they actually are. Or close enough to. Can you imagine how big the Chameleon’s head is this week since he found out the entire galaxy revolves around him?!
Okay, he is still exaggerating. But he did find a constellation named in his honour this week, thanks to some stargazing adventures in one of the local observatories.
And consequently, the Chameleon’s head?…… it is Huge!
My progress on the Lunarcy Quilt? Not quite so big. We’ve had temporary electricity dramas, which knocked out much of my sewing time. I have started on the Dog block, but it’s a work in progress.
At least having insufficient electricity doesn’t prevent butterfly spotting. A whole new set of species are out lately. They are all small ones, but pretty. Our colour board contributor is a Two-spotted Line-blue (I believe). It was playing with the Common Grass-blues. Which are also very pretty.
I’ll fill you in on a third cute (new to me) little butterfly next week. I had fun watching this third one, I will elaborate when I have more time.
The aforementioned stargazing
Here at Arkaroola there are quite a number of observatories. Being so isolated and such a small collection of buildings, we have impressive dark skies. And being in the desert, we also have more than our fair share of cloud-free nights. So last Wednesday night we organised an online astronomy session for my daughter’s Scout group. We were lucky enough to sit in the observatory, while the other Scouts all joined us online from 700 km away. It is not the best time of year to be looking, as many interesting things are not in view at the moment, but we still had some fun with the very amazing 40 cm telescope.
We looked up a globular cluster (a big group of old stars in the Milky Way).
And the Eta Carina Nebula. It is actually too big to see in a single field of the telescope.
And the Sombrero Galaxy.
And we watched the telescope track around the star chart…… At least most of us did. Someone was too busy admiring himself and his newfound imaginary importance!
Do you see what is at the centre of this southern hemisphere sky map? There is a constellation called Chamaeleon! Of all things…. I pointed out that his constellation is near the southern celestial pole, and that means the Earth rotates on him rather than around him, and little else. And do you know what? Deaf earholes.
Lunarcy of another kind
The only remedy is to change the topic, of course. On Saturday night we lost power to our house. A problem that grew progressively worse for the village over the following two days before it was fixed. We were thankful to be able to borrow this generator to run the fridge and the school computers/internet.
But all aspirations of finishing the next block went out the window. As you can see, I have made an honest start on the Year of the Dog block. But there is a ways to go.
Before the dramas, I was making good progress on the blossoms in the borders. I have sewed about 150 of the 600 down now, so it’s not feeling like such a daunting task.
Disclaimer: Island Batik supplied these fabrics to me free of charge to create the prototype Lunarcy BOM available here soon at Clever Chameleon for the remainder of 2020.
While the Chameleon’s been navel stargazing….
… lots of other sewing fun has been happening in wider circles.
Let’s see what was linked up this past week (sorry, I haven’t got to comment on most links yet due to the power limitations causing a globular cluster of time-eating black holes in my immediate neighbourhood….. but I have read all your wonderful linked posts).
I was going to feature the flowered quilts this week, since that is pretty much all I got done on my project. But then Chameleon couldn’t go past Denise’s post at For the Love of Geese. Denise had a collection of vintage fabrics presented to her and she hath wrought a marvel!
The Chameleon thinks he always looks good in checks, and these are superb. I agree it’d be better if he was more permanently in check!
Then he argued that Stars (and pinwheels) at Quilting and Learning – what a combo! with Andrée was a more relevant topic than flowers….. Anything to make sure you don’t go forgetting about a certain star grouping near the southern celestial pole I suspect.
And only then I was allowed to show you some floral pretties. Nancy at Grace and Peace Quilting has both butterfly and flower prints, so that was ok by Mr Sir Chameleon, sir.
And appliqué flowers passed muster too. Especially these pretty ones at DONNERLEAQ. Head on over to her site for a closer look, as the telescope has been shut down and I can’t show you the detail from here. Something about how it was mysteriously orienting itself to the south pole everytime it was unattended….. probably just ghosts…..
Enough! Time to find out how your week went……
Are you starry eyed over something? Tell us – what are you working on, or have recently finished in your sewing room? We want to know so we can visit and be inspired. Link up a blog post, an IG post or simply a photo from your computer. See if you can get the Chameleon to turn quilted with happiness. We’d love to see your quilting colours!
- Link up your latest or recent quilt/sewing excitement. All quilt construction stages welcome – finished quilts, quilt blocks – even fabric pulls! Or inspiration sources!
- You have 50 characters in the link description…. tell us who you are and what your fantastic project is.
- URL links are not necessary to link up…. non-bloggers 100% welcome! If you don’t have a URL, you can link up with just a photo.
- Take a moment to visit some friends who came to the party – leave a little love and make their day. And a link back to Clever Chameleon is always appreciated.
- Do it now……. before you forget!
The Chameleon turns rainbow with pleasure when he hears from you. I am more reserved, so I will respond in gratitude by email instead. Now that it’s your turn…. Scroll right to the end, leave me a comment and tell me, what do you think? Thanks for connecting!
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, IG or FB. All your follow options can be found here. Don’t forget to link up all your current quilting projects on Tuesdays at our Colour & Inspiration Linky parties!
Your posts are always so much fun to read. Chameleon was being quite cheeky, I’d say, although I can’t blame him 🙂 I’ve never visited a planetarium, but we do have one near us. I should put that on my list of fun things to do. Those butterflies are so pretty!
Hello from Illinois. I am so loving your adventures. Thank you for sharing them with us. I love how when we really take the time to look at all the different colors in something, we see more than at first glance. How fun with the observatory. I was in one many times in CA in the Mojave Dessert. That was a blast to see what God had put in the skies for us to wonder and love.
My BFF husband had an observatory on their acreage in Alberta. The couple of times we got to look through his telescope (a setup much like this one you show) was amazing, and humbling. We are nothing but a tiny blip in the Universe. Yay chamaeleon for being what you knew all along, a star! No, more than that! 🙂 And oh, I miss dark skies, like we had in Alberta. Here in southern Ontario, we often have too much light pollution from all the greenhouse (veggies, flowers, marijuana) growers.
I linked up two posts, original one with all the projects, and the second one with the updated bolster cushion toute finie! 🙂
Oh my! Your chameleon looks great in every quilt!!! Beautiful butterflies! And the star looking was awesome! Sorry about the electricity drama! You are living an interesting life!
All of your features this week were my favorites too, including my own. The Chameleon does look grand dressed in all those colors. Thank you for the shout out. So sorry to hear your power knocked out, that is always a chore trying to save food and sanity.
Hi Dione, the observatory visit, even if virtual, sounds great. I love looking at stars and really miss the darker skies of Northern Ontario where I grew up. I’m glad that the Chameleon has his own star constellation. I think that we all should 🙂
Thanks so much for the feature – stars (and pinwheels) are so cool. I’m looking forward to FMQ them – the “in-the-ditch” quilting is all done. Yeah!
Take care and good luck with the electricity.
Awesome views from the observatory, even if it isn’t the prime time of year for you! Tell that Chameleon he/she looks dapper decked out in all the beautiful quilt colors! Even if the Earth does rotate on him! LOL
I wish I had gotten to read your delightfully witty post yesterday when I was in a deep funk after discovering that the deer had decimated a lilac bush, leaving only 5 flower buds at the top. It was start about to open. Anyway reading you post has cheered me up a bit (as long as I don’t look at that poor bush.) I guess you have to take the bad adventures like power outages along with the good like the visit to the observatory. Good luck making more progress on Lunarcy.
I love seeing what you saw on the stargazing adventure. I am, however, shocked you were allowed to show anything or talk about anything else when there was a Chameleon Constellation!!! You will get back to the lunarcy quilt…it is a product of love and hard work…and it will be an extraordinary reflection of its designer and creator!
Oh, Dione — I haven’t seen a star-filled sky in SO many years. My electricity and Internet are stable and I have quilt shops and restaurants galore, but the houses and shops are packed so closely together that the sky is never truly dark at night. I enjoyed seeing your butterflies, too and I think your little Year of the Dog block is adorable!