Great Outdoors Quilt Progress and Snow Globe Coaster Winners

I hope you’ve had a great week and made some progress on something fun

I’ve been working on my latest Island Batik Great Outdoors blog hop quilt and here’s a little look at where I’m up to. This quilt is going to be a large single (twin) bed size and is already claimed, pre-finish, by my daughter.

I think I’m going to need some help naming this quilt…. The concept’s changed a little since I started and it’s left me floundering for a good name…… I’m hoping maybe you’ll be able to help me. I’ll tell you the background and where I’m heading, and give you some thinking time. Then, come the 15th August you can let me know your name suggestions to be in the running to win some Island Batik fabric.

The gory details

The initial inspiration for this quilt came from a book about early Australian quilts called “The Fabric of Society” by Annette Gero. 

While I was looking for a Vintage-Inspired quilt idea for April’s challenge I happened across this quilt:

It’s called Aunt Clara’s quilt (c1915). It is embroidered all over and stitched on every seam like a crazy quilt.

But it’s not the surface design that attracted me. I haven’t time for such things right now – Aunt Clara’s quilt took years not weeks. Looking past all the detail, what I really liked was the way the lighter coloured hexagon pieces form wriggling paths across the surface of the design. And I thought that the fabrics I was given for August’s challenge could be used to make something that captured this essence of Aunt Clara’s quilt. For the record, I also decided that instead of a centre feature panel like Aunt Clara’s quilt I would have a panel across the width of the quilt.

In my Island Batik surprise bundle from the first box, I received cuts of each fabric in the Victoria and Albert collection. August’s challenge is to feature as many of them as possible. I am proud to tell you my quilt uses them all. 🙂 

Making the quilt – the story so far

I cut lots of hexagons, sewed them into doughnuts and appliquéd squares over their centres.

You can read more about that in last Tuesday’s post. Then I decided I liked the centres better on point than straight like Aunt Clara’s quilt, so I sewed them into rows in this orientation.

Now I am about halfway through filling the holes between the rows with more appliquéd squares. I can’t tell you exactly what I have planned for the large green panel section, because I have to have something to show and tell on the 15th,  don’t I?! 🙂 But I wouldn’t like to lead you up the garden path while you are thinking of a great quilt name for me. So I will tell you that the special panel will involve dragonflies. Unless I change my mind of course. lol

Incidentally, I was probably going to call this quilt “Up the Garden Path” until I changed the orientation of the blocks. Now I think it looks more like the trellis I used to grow passionfruit on than paths, so that name doesn’t seem right anymore. And coincidentally……. I found out something today, while I was listening to The Antiques Roadshow in the background in my sewing room. My ears pricked up when William Morris was mentioned, because there is a good deal of Morris influence in these fabric prints. It turns out that Morris’ very first wallpaper design was called “Trellis”. Isn’t it fun when life throws little bits of connectedness at you like that?!

Anyway, come back on the 15th August and tell me what I should name my daughter’s new quilt and see how I finished it. You could be the lucky recipient of a small bundle of pretties from my Island Batik riches.

But now it’s time to announce…….

The Snow Globe Coaster Give-Away Winners

Congratulations to the following readers on winning a snow globe coaster from Monday’s contest:

Susan, Audrey. Kathy K and Brenda

Susan gave me several great reasons why she should collect the cockatoo. Audrey preempted my next move to convert these to Christmas ornaments (too clever for her own good!). Brenda seems to know a lot about koalas. And Kathy K connected with me through a common love of nice surprises.

The winner of the kit is Sandra……. It’s a long time since someone’s written me a poem, so I’ll admit I was touched by the amount of effort she went to to twist my arm.  If you missed it, here it is:

“The koala bear I’d pick you know
He’s adorable, cavorting in the snow
But creativity is what you’ve asked
And here’s my attempt to rise to the task!
In honesty I’d prefer learning to make my own,
So I hope you’ll send a kit to my home!”

What can I say? I am both impressed and amused. I’ve even forgiven the reference to “bear”!  🙂

Well done ladies, I have sent you each an email.

It seems the kit idea was popular…. It makes me proud to think that the Clever Chameleon community is attracting so many motivated makers and learners. I will have a look through my scraps and see if we can have another DIY give-away closer to Christmas. In the meantime the Island Batik blog hop starts on the 6th August, runs until the 4th September and there will be give-aways every weekday for more than four weeks. So make sure you follow along. 

Something fun to kickstart your weekend

Did you know, koalas are most closely related to wombats…. I mention this purely because I want an excuse to recommend this short video I found yesterday to you all. It’s just too funny and sweet….. it’s about a really talented artist who drew a  beautiful “graffiti” wombat on a bridge and another guy who thought it was awesome – in a town very close to where my Dad lives. I don’t know how contrived the story is. But the mural exists and it is proof that the Australian larrikin is not extinct just yet. I’m still smiling.

And don’t forget, if you’ve been working on something sewn this week and you’d like to show everyone, the Tuesday link party is still open until Sunday night (Australian time). We’d love to see your work.

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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 or FB. All your follow options can be found here. And don’t forget to link up all your current quilting projects on Tuesdays at our Colour Inspiration Linky parties!

The Chameleon turns rainbow with pleasure when he hears from you. I normally respond by email instead. 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!