Happy Winter, from the Southern Hemisphere
Our winter officially started here yesterday. Although if you were here, you’d be forgiven for not noticing: 18C (64F) and sunny. Truly lovely weather during the day, although the nights are chilly now.
The desert knows it’s not summer anymore though. The Salvation Jane weeds (also known as Paterson’s Curse) are growing their incredibly perfect rosettes of teal leaves in the creek bed. Hate the weed, but got to admire that growth habit in our colour board! Also, another weed that has been insipidly hanging around for months has suddenly just acquired breathtaking colour. I give you the latest in desert decoration: the Ruby Dock.
I can’t help but admire the colours, the intricate patterns and the marvellous textures of these amazing plants, even if it would be better if they weren’t here.
The beautiful weather has been good for my own intricate patterns too. I’ve had a productive week ….. I’ve finished my secret sewing I mentioned last week, and submitted the draft pattern. I’m increasingly finding that paper-piecing is pretty addictive…. But no squirrels just yet. I am being good and I’m back to working on the Lunarcy. I have even finished tweaking the Year of the Dog block. Another big step closer to starting to release the pattern.
The Bugs also know it’s Winter
The evening moths are all but gone now. And the katydids. And even the butterflies are only out in the warmest part of the day now. It’s too cold at night for the summer bugs to flourish. But nature always fills a void…. and so we came face to face with a new critter on the weekend.
Warning: if you do not like my bug stories, scroll past the guard puppy and continue to the Lunarcy update and the linky party. Do not click on the protective party pooch. He is covering a slideshow of our latest unwanted house guest, and it’s not for the faint hearted. On the other hand, if you think creepy crawlies are totally fascinating, move that slobbery inane thing out the way and take a look at what we found in my son’s bed on the weekend…..
True story: On Saturday my son raced into the kitchen waving his arms around and hyperventilating. There was a centipede in his bed, he said. It was 2cm wide and 20cm long, he said. It scuttled over his tummy and nearly ate him up whole….. ok I made that very last bit up….. but the scuttling and everything before it was reported with emphasis. I laughed and told him he’d make a great fisherman. Centipedes are bad, but not that bad!
Uuuuuummmmmm, yes, that bad…….
Turns out, the centipedes here actually are that bad. It was fully 2 cm wide with legs, maybe more. And at least 16cm (about 7in) long. It was an orange-ish Australian Giant Centipede (Ethmostigmus rubripes). If you were/are game enough to slide the carefree capped canine out of the way, you will see we did an immediate catch, measure and release…… a loooong way from the house. Those things do bite, quite painfully I’m told. Venomous yes, but not particularly dangerous to humans. They eat insects and spiders, and tend to bunker down for winter, which is presumably what it thought it was doing in our young lad’s bed. Interestingly, Giant Centipedes are good mothers, guarding their eggs, and the babies until their second moult. I’ve been out-maternaled this week by a myriapod. Fascinating. Disturbing. And better outside.
I have also had to dock Mr Mew’s pay. He is not a very good guard cat, letting such a thing loose in the house. Truth is, he likes the fact that I am sewing more lately, and would rather play at being Rumplesquiltskin than chase dubious bitey things.
The Lunarcy continues
If you are avoiding the critter chatter, then you are safe to read on from here. Here’s what I did with my Saturday afternoon once the excitement settled down.
I finished the Year of the Dog block. Here’s some of the details I finished sewing down.
We have a short school week next week due to public holidays and teacher training. Hopefully I can get to writing some more of this pattern.
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.
Join our Colour Party-ists from last week. Much classier than a pooch with a pointy pink party hat…
Melva at Melva Loves Scraps impressed the Chameleon this week with her colour adventures. A sleepover with a good friend to make mini barn quilts turned into a remake of “The Color Kittens”. Except that Melva and Julie were after purple, not green. Trust red food colouring to save the day! Here’s their finished paintings.
Mary at Made by Marney has been horsing around…. actually Mary has not been, her customers have. Anita made this wonderful blue and brown version of Mary’s pattern “Hay Girl”. If you’ve got a horse-mad kid in your circles, I think this cute pattern just might be worth ponying up for. (No affiliation).
And finally, we’ve talked about Southern Hemisphere winter…. but it’s also Spring for our Northern friends. Donnaleeq has an abundance of spring projects on display in her home this week. And a cameo on her blog by Colonel Sanders. Who, I bet, would not have hid under a quilt if he saw a large juicy centipede volunteering to be dinner. Just saying, Mr Mew!
The Chameleon’s got a joke for you…..
A cowboy chameleon rides into town wearing a 100% paper outfit. Paper shirt, paper pants, paper boots, paper holster. Even a paper hat.
He wasn’t in town more than five minutes before he was arrested for rustling.
Bahahaha. The Chameleon thinks he’s so funny! Spare me….. Tell us – what are you rustling up, or 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. Now that it’s your turn…. Scroll to the end and tell me what 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!
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!
Ok, that bug in bed YIKES! I doubt you are out-mothered by any bug…it just feels that way sometimes with our inner needs wanting some attention while everyone else has us meeting their needs! It does change…and you will miss it. Glad you are making progress on lunarcy. I need to get moving on second grand niece’s quilt then a great and fun project for me…TBD.
While I skipped the bug pictures, I would have been flailing around like your son if one of those things were in MY bed. We do get them in our basement once in a while, but they can just stay there! Thanks for the shout out. It was a fun and happy to share the experience with others.
Oh my, bugs in bed no, but good of you to get him or her outside where they belong. The Colonel would never have let that bug get away. He is somewhat of a family pet. Over the weekend we spent some time out at my daughter’s home and grandson Ben sat with that silly chicken in his lap, petting him and scratching his head. The Colonel thinks he is a dog. He is a rather good duckling baby sitter of mother ducks 13 brood. When they popped through the fence into his yard he watched over them while mother duck had a nice rest.
My husband tells that joke about the cowboy, er cow chameleon, but he calls him Brown Paper Pete and manages to stretch it out into a 5 minute yarn that ends with loud groans from everyone in earshot.
Was he decked out in camo, lol? Your poor boy, I would have freaked too. Your quilt is coming along nicely and I love all the applique flowers.
Oh wow, I can understand your son’s angst! Bugs are not my favorite and certainly not the looks of that critter!!
Hi,
Love your Dog Block….so pretty. Not fond of bugs, so I skipped the video…you have beautiful “weeds”…have a great day!
Oh but those two weeds are lovely. The patterns are wonderful.
Well now that is a large centipede. When I was in 4-H I took entomology. To me that was fascinating. Learning about different bugs. Still is I suppose. LOL My three younger brothers wanted nothing to do with bugs. LOL Our son wanted nothing to do with bugs, let mom take care of them. And our daughter, well she knows what to do when she meets a bug. She researches them so she knows in the future. LOL She loves to hike in the mountains so it is a good thing to know. Same with snakes.
Your quilt is coming along nicely. So pretty. Thanks for sharing.
I LOVE the colours of Salvation Jane! Too bad they are weeds!
That’s a LARGE centipede!
Happy Quilting! 🙂
Hi Dione, that was truly disgusting, especially for your son….yuke! I couldn’t help but look. I’m glad that the cooler weather is helping you be productive – it often helps. Your Lunarcy project is looking good. We had a heat wave last week and now it feels like fall 🙁
Take care
Embellishment is so good, giving us all a much needed spot of happiness and mirth, but how scary!!! He will now check the bed every time the sheets get turned back.
I love this post! Took me a minute to decide I wanted to see the creepy crawly….although that puppy was pretty darn cute to look at! I would’ve been waving my arms and hyperventilating too if that thing had been in my bed. I remember visiting friends that lived in the southern states and I woke up with a lizard on my pillow. Freaked me out!
That’s some centipede crawling over George’s face!
BTW: give the kitty a pass, would you like that clawy-legged thing crunching about in YOUR mouth?
😉
While I can handle a spider or 2 in my house, I draw the line at centipedes, of any size!