What do Lily Pads and QUBEs have in common?
A recycled colour scheme from way back in June 2017.
Whaaaaat? LOL, no I’m not a “frog short of a lily pond”. It’ll all make sense in a moment, but it starts with this Lily Pad Glow colour board re-run. As we all know, life goes in circles and today’s little colour board has resurfaced for a red hot go at inspiring a quilt design. Even more shockingly….. a quilt that is actually being made.
This pretty pastel colour scheme was only the fourth colour scheme I ever placed on my blog (which was only about 6 weeks old at the time). How time flies! But while the colour board might be old in internet terms, I still love it, and this month it was the trigger that I needed for my newest design. Sometimes things just need a little time to ruminate and germinate!
This month, the Island Batik Ambassadors are tackling their Accuquilt challenge. Remember when I got all excited about receiving an Accuquilt 8″ QUBE? Well, buckle up for a creative ride, because April is the month you will see all the things the Ambassadors have imagined with it!
The Accuquilt GO! cutter, 8″ QUBE die set and the Island Batik fabrics featured in this post were given to me to use in my role as an Island Batik Ambassador.
The Island Batik Ambassador Challenge for April
Our Island Batik Challenge for April is to use the Accuquilt GO! cutter and dies we were given in our Ambassador packs to create a baby quilt.
Remember my excitement at receiving the Ready. Set. GO! kit? In this Accuquilt bundle there is an 8″ QUBE set, with eight dies of mix-and-match geometric shapes. Also included were quilt block pattern cards and the GO! QUBE book by Eleanor Burns.
A combination of some of the aquatic tones of my recent Island Batik acquisitions, a pile of pink scraps from previous challenges and sighting my Lily Pad Glow colour board put me in the mood for some sort of pond life quilt. So then when I saw some of the suggested quilt blocks included in the Accuquilt package I suddenly saw easy adaptations to lily pad and lily flower blocks. Sold!
Then…. I also remembered that Accuquilt currently sell a reproduction frog die released for their 10th Anniversary. Thus the idea of a frog pond baby quilt was born. Having justified the need for the frog die I had been coveting on and off for ages, I went and bought it. 😀
I’ve made a start….
I have actually planned out this quilt very carefully to be a sampler, yet to still feel cute and pictorial all at the same time. I don’t want to do the full reveal of my plan today though, I’d rather reveal my progress as it happens. This little quilt will be a happy light-hearted little piece and I hope we will enjoy the journey together.
So here’s where I’ve got to….
Here’s me trying to match fabrics to my vision. In the end I settled for more truish bluish colour fabrics, rather than the blue-greens that I had originally intended as per the colour board. That is because I want the greens of the lily pads to stand out against the water blues and I can’t rely on value contrast to help me out much this time. So colour contrast it is!
I started my piecing adventure with some of the flower blocks to get my accuracy eye in. I even refrained from using steam to give these blocks the best start in life!
What form of quilt torture is this?!
Yup, I won’t pretend I enjoyed putting this block together…. the Y-seams with multiple junctions were a real pain. But I am pleased with how it ended up, which is due in no small part to not cutting the pieces by hand. Accuracy is one of the blessings of the GO! cutter system, along with speed if you are making mass-produced pieces. That second benefit is irrelevant in this project, as each block is a one-off and placement decisions are taking much longer than any cutting involved.
This final shot is the current state of things. One row pieced to insane accuracy with much over-thinking. We’ll see if that construction method lasts!
So that’s April’s focus for me. You’ll be seeing a lot more of this quilt in the next couple of weeks. But now, let’s take a moment to look back at last week’s link party.
Green, Green, all Green!
Last week was all green on the blog with hearts for the Healing Hearts for Christchurch project. And it was disproportionately green in our linkups too, in a good way.
I hope you’ll agree, Turid from Den syende himmel has to take home the top feature spot this week.
Six years of hand stitching and quilting and over 17,000 hexies! I have been watching Turid’s quilt take shape for a couple of years now, and I can’t believe it’s finished! I can believe how stunning it is though – it’s beauty has been evident for some time and it doesn’t disappoint now that it’s finished either. Well done Turid, hats off to you, it’s incredible! And the chameleon especially loves it…. the texture in your photo looks just like reptile skin. 😀
Our other all green linkup was from Nancy of Grace and Peace Quilting. I love Nancy’s post for several reasons, not the least of which was her idea of taking glory shots of her quilt in IKEA. As someone who values quilting over (ahem) housework, I think that commandeering an IKEA home-like space for quilt photos is a magic idea. I’d probably never have the courage, but hey, it makes me smile to imagine…..
And finally a quick shout out to Rebecca Grace at Cheeky Cognoscenti for a very thorough tutorial and commentary on her appli-piecing of her Geese In Circles quilt. I have tried similar tricks and am totally impressed with her commitment to getting this quilt “just right”! If you like to piece and quilt on the less conventional side (like me and Rebecca) then I think you might find valuable things in this post.
Now, let’s see your quilting activities from the last week or two….
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!
Oh your lily pad quilt is coming along wonderfully. I can see the lily pads and flowers. Cant wait to see if you put frogs on it. Beautiful.
I really like what you have going and look forward to seeing it progress. The fabrics you have chosen are playing very well together. This is my favorite Colour Inspiration so far. Thank you for the linky party.
Rebecca gives such wonderful detail for her stitching, and that would be great for any more applique down here. Love your fabric choices, and what detail in all that piecing.
Hi Dione! That first row of the April challenge is together, and I can’t wait to see the next one. That Y-seam block is a no-way for me, but I sure do admire you for tackling it. It turned out fabulous! ~smile~ Roseanne
Beautiful colors in your palate and project, Dione! Thank you for featuring my green quilt this week!
I love the colors in your palette and wow, that will be one sweet baby quilt!! I think piecing accuracy is the thing I love most about AccuQuilt! Your Y seams look awesome, girl! I don’t do Y seams! LOL
Hi Dione, I just realised that your lily pond inspired my quilting tonight of the lotus flowers (I’m not sure what the difference is). Thanks for that beautifully inspiring photo. Good luck with those blocks – that’s what I consider torture 🙂
Hi, Dione, and thanks for the shout-out to my blog post! :-). I bought a GO! Baby a couple of years ago that had been languishing in a drawer until I pulled it out for my mom the other day. She had so much fun cutting out tumblers from my scrap bin while I finished up the blocks for my son’s quilt, and I didn’t have to stop what I was doing to teach her rotary cutting. She can get right to the piecing, and with the accuracy of die cut shapes she’ll have a very successful first project. My only regrets are that the dies are so expensive and that I should have bought the full-size GO! because there are larger dies I wish I could use that are not compatible with the Baby version!