Electric Blues: Colour & Inspiration Tuesday

The best laid plans are nought without electricity…..

I’m not where I wanted to be on this project today. But even I know that neither mice nor men can make a HQ Sweet Sixteen run during a blackout, so our Inspiration Tuesday is to celebrate what I have got. Which is the electricity back on in time to make dinner, lights back on before dark, a charging laptop and most of my Island Batik challenge done for August. Overall, it’s all good.

I had been aiming to get my Star Light, Star Bright challenge quilt done by today, clearing the way for our second Love with a Twist block for the month later in the week and a clean slate for September. But it wasn’t to be. The upside is that today you get to see the appliqué that I’ve already added to my wonky star blocks. And I get to save telling you about my motives for making this quilt until another day soon. When I can show you it finished and in use. While it might look like a bed runner, and could be made as one, in this instance it is not. I have a very specific purpose in mind for this quilt.

Wonky beginnings for Star Light, Star Bright

Disclaimer: The fabrics featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik for use in the Island Batik Ambassador program.

Near the beginning of August, I made a series of wonky star blocks for my latest Ambassador project. These blocks were great fun to make and I even wrote you a tutorial, which you can find here.

These stars really appeal to my preference to sew precisely, without having to perfect lots of points that drive me mad if they don’t line up. Don’t they look terrific en masse?

I sewed all my wonky stars into a long, looooong sweeping array before I went away for an amazing quilty weekend and then engaged in a mad dash to finish my reimagined vintage quilt, Crazed Diamonds. I had to have Crazed Diamonds done for a Victorian-era-themed exhibit at our Royal Show (State Fair). The Victorian exhibit theme is a one-off in honour of the bicentenary of Queen Victoria’s birth year. In the end I had all of 40 minutes to spare between the last stitch and the drop off time at the showgrounds (heaps of time, haha!!)…. so I didn’t get photos. I will show you photos when I get it back after the first week of September.

Anyway, I digress. Once Crazed Diamonds was finished and delivered, I turned back to my wonky stars and my long skinny quilt top and added some inspiring words……

Shine Bright!

I’m still loving my brother ScanNCut digital cutter that cuts out all my appliqué shapes whenever I ask. I used it this time to cut out the letters for the phrase “Shine Bright” from the almond dots neutral batik sent to me by Island Batik in my latest Ambassador supplies.

Here are the letters being pinned into position before fusing.

I appliquéd the letters to the quilt top with white Madeira rayon thread and layered my work over bamboo/cotton blend batting. Then I chose a variegated Tutti thread by Wonderfil called Blue Night TU24 for the quilting.

I started outlining the appliqué and the stars, and quilting the background with swirls when the power went out. I got just over halfway before I was defeated. Tomorrow is a new day. And I’m pleased with the outcome so far.

More inspiration abounds from last week’s party!

Did you see Vasudha of Storied Quilts’s quilt in the Beat the Heat blog hop with Island Batik? Her quilt is called Purple Mountain Majesty, with references to the patriotic and stirring poetry by Katherine Lee Bates.

The Chameleon was similarly stirred, but more in the direction of The Sound of Music and “Climb Every Mountain” kind of direction…..

Climb every mountain
Ford every stream
Follow every rainbow
Till you find your dream…….

Oscar II Hammerstein / Richard Rodgers

The Chameleon can’t resist a good mountain!

Don’t forget all the other quilts and competitions in the Beat the Heat hop with Island Batik too. You can find the previous week’s hop stops here on the Island Batik blog.

BAck to our linky party, the Chameleon’s favourite colours to dress up in this week were from this quilt from Nancy of Grace and Peace Quilting. With colours like this and a great tongue-twister name of Linkety Split, this was always going to be a shoe-in with the Chameleon!

And Susan of Quilt Fabrication linked up this fascinating quilt top in progress. 164 HSTs, made in the heat! Now that is a mountain to conquer, which she has done most ably – she even named her post “Getting closer to the top”. Now we all know she probably was not thinking of mountain tops at the time, but the Chameleon is. 😀

What Quilty Mountain are you currently climbing?

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!

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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!