Be a Diamond Frog Hop (Colour & Inspiration Tuesday)

Frog hop, Blog hop…..

This week is the Be A Diamond blog hop with Carol at Just Let Me Quilt. And today is my day to add to the sparkling quilt line-up. If you are new here… I am very hoppy to meet you. If you are back for your usual dose of colour, quilts and absurdity….. well, you are a true diamond. Happy hoppy Colour & Inspiration Tuesday, my friend!

Either way, come on in. Let’s talk diamond(ish) quilts today!

When Carol of Just Let Me Quilt put out her invitation to the Be A Diamond blog hop, I had already committed to both my March and April quilt designs for Island Batik. As luck would have it, my March quilt was a completely congruent rhomboid 12-carat diamond affair, right down to its name, Crazed Diamonds. But. It was scheduled for the Wrong Month. On the other hand, today’s (April’s) quilt plan was diamond free. Wrong Quilt.

Or was it? On second reading, Carol’s list of acceptable diamonds included squares in squares….. and that I did have planned for April! I even had a square-in-a-square-based block named “diamond star” in the mix.

So, on what I still feel is slightly false pretences, Pond Life, with eleven square-in-a-square blocks, and a stack of parallelograms, is happily in the Be A Diamond blog hop.

Pond Life, my happiest, hoppiest baby quilt yet

For April’s challenge, Island Batik asked for a baby quilt up to 48″ square, to be made with the Accuquilt Ready. Set. GO! system.

As a rule, I don’t make small baby quilts. I tend to aim for toddler or twin size so that my efforts can be used by a growing recipient for as long as possible. But I do make exceptions, and this was one I was happy to make. Partly because Accuquilt supplied most of the tools required to cut this quilt, which I got rather excited about. 😀 Partly because the fabrics I had for this quilt probably would not have stretched to a larger size anyway. And partly because now that I have a prototype for this quilt, it will be easy to upsize the pattern. Bigger blocks or added borders will both do the trick.

I have no glory shots of this quilt for you today, despite my best intentions. Sorry. Pond Life is not completely finished – because I failed to factor in Easter, the school holidays and my need for sleep when volunteering for this hop! But even without the last touches of quilting, and the obvious lack of binding, it is fun and glorious, and I hope you’ll enjoy it anyway. As my Island Batik Ambassador quilt for April, it has a few more days to meet that deadline. So, if you come back in a few days time, I plan for it to be completely done very soon.

The Details

Pond Life is made of Island Batik fabrics, from a variety of collections. One of the nice things about Island Batik fabrics is that old and new fabrics often play together really nicely. These fabrics were given to me by Island Batik for use as an Island Batik Ambassador. There are also some leftovers from the Triangle Friends quilt in there.

I used the Accuquilt 8″ QUBE to cut the pieces for this design. This saved my sanity, as it meant I could concentrate on placement of my scraps rather than using all my faculties to get the right pieces cut one at a time. The QUBE was also generously supplied to me as part of the Island Batik Ambassador program.

I also used the Accuquilt frog die, which I bought especially for this quilt.

I was very pleased with myself when I realised that I could carefully fold and cut my fabrics to get frog shapes other than just the die shape.

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Inside the Pond Life quilt I have unbleached cotton batting on a scrim from HOBBS, given to me as an Island Batik Ambassador. The piecing, appliqué and quilting have been done with a variety of threads. Pink from Aurifil, variegated blue from Superior Threads, variegated green from Wonderfil and a golden rayon from Madeira. I used 100wt Invisifil from Wonderfil in the bobbin. The pink Aurifil was also given to me last year as an Island Batik Ambassador, the rest I have purchased over the years. They all played nicely in my HQ Sweet Sixteen, except the King Tut blue cotton, which snapped at high speed without fail. At least it was consistent….

Hidden surprises

For anyone with the patience to look at this quilt up close for a bit, there are some less than obvious pond life inclusions, just for fun 🙂 You can see some of my practice quilting doodles above. And some quilting detail below.

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…. frogs, goldfish, tadpoles and turtles are all there for anyone patient enough to look for them. 😀

If you’d like to see more of the in process shots of Pond Life, I am currently experimenting with documenting progress milestones more frequently on Instagram than I can on the blog. You can find me at @cleverchameleon. And don’t forget to come back for the Pond Life quilt finish here by the end of April.

Thanks for visiting here today, I hope you enjoy the rest of the blog hop. You are also invited to my weekly quilting linky party at the end of this post.

Be A Diamond, and visit more of the hop!

There are five days of diamond-themed quilts for your viewing pleasure courtesy of Carol at Just Let Me Quilt.

April 22
Needled Mom
Keepsake Moments
Kathy’s Quilts
Kathy’s Kwilts and More
Color, Creating, and Quilting

April 23
Ms P Designs USA
Vroomans Quilts
Marjorie’s Busy Corner
Melva Loves Scraps
Storied Quilts
Words & Stitches
Songbird Designs

April 24
MooseStashQuilting
Beaquilter
Vicki’s Crafts and Quilting
Creative Blonde 
Selina Quilts
Bumbleberry Stitches
Two Maker Chicks
Quilts By Joanne

April 25
Patchouli Moon Studio
Elizabeth Coughlin Designs
Hill Valley Quilter
Mageez Room
Websterquilt
High Road Quilter
Seams To Be Sew

April 26
Creatin’ in the Sticks
Cynthia’s Creating Ark
Days Filled With Joy
For The Love Of Geese
Quilt Fabrication
Stitchin At Home
Just Let Me Quilt

And join in the Chameleon’s Colour & Inspiration Party!

Last week we had a bumper line-up in our weekly linky! Easter and Spring made a big appearance. On that note, I hope you had a safe and blessed Easter weekend.

My favourite link up last party was this paper-pieced flower quilt made by Lisa England on Flickr. Isn’t it just beautiful? I could easily find a hanging space for this in my house and drink in it’s quiet prettiness everyday!

And it should also be mentioned that diamonds (or squares on point) were a surprisingly common theme last week! We had (clockwise from top left): Diamond Chronicles from Janice at Color, Creating & Quilting, Springtime Cabin from Eve at Patches of Destruxion (she hung it on point, so I’ve counted it, haha!), Rue D’ Osage bed runner from Chris at Chrisknitssews and Crumble Jumble Pink from Susan at Quilt Fabrication .

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Surely you’ve had enough diamonds for now! So, provide us an alternative….. actually, more diamonds are perfectly welcome too!

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!