Regatta Quilt Update and Red Bears Galore!

Regatta Quilt prgress

It’s been a week of good progress on a few things, but…..

Do you ever find, the less urgent and less important a quilt project is, the more attractive it is to work on?! That has been my struggle for much of this week. The Regatta Quilt, which is supposed to be my project for weary evenings and small slots of otherwise wasted time, has been calling to me…. “Sew me…. Sew me….. Please sew meeeeeeee! You know you want toooooooooo!”

The Regatta Quilt is a sew along being hosted by Home Sewn by Us. The quilt is designed by Daniela O’Connell and you can get the free pattern  here.  The sew along originally appealed to me because there are no deadlines and no pressure.  Something to fit in as time allowed. But of course, now that I’ve started, I am sucked in and could happily sit and sew until it is done!

Pedal Pushers by Moda

I am making my Regatta Quilt with a jellyroll that I was gifted years ago. I threw away the packaging long ago, but I have dug up the details. The fabrics are “Pedal Pushers” by Lauren & Jessi for Moda fabrics. I am making this quilt for my daughter, as she is fast outgrowing some of her early childhood quilts.

Regatta Quilt Design Finalised

My self-restraint started out well. I cut some white strips and put them aside. I even joined pairs of white strips together into longer strips some time later, and again put them aside. Then! One evening I decided to choose a layout for the coloured strips, and….. well you know how it goes! Hours later…… way past bedtime…..

Regatta Quilt layout
This is just layed out – it’s not sewn

The Regatta Quilt calls for 19 pairs of coloured fabric strips and a light background fabric. My layout challenge was that the Pedal Pushers jellyroll doesn’t have pairs of fabric strips. Only a handful of fabrics are repeated. The rest of the jellyroll is made up of unique strips. So, I paired similarly coloured fabrics together and placed the more subtle of each pair of prints on the right and the bolder prints on the left. The picture above has a few gaps where one strip will be cut and used in two places.

Last night I did treat myself to a little sewing. Of course, I *should* have been writing this blog post.

Regatta strata
The sewn strips for my Regatta Quilt so far

Good thing I have a furry helper stopping me from sewing any more of it today. I only laid it out on the bed to look at it, honest……!

cat on Regatta Quilt
Did I mention it is hot and humid today….. black cat hairs should show up nicely on this quilt…… Serves me right for getting it out!

Coming up soon on Clever Chameleon

This morning I worked on my charity quilt for my One Monthly Goal. I have been designing a new FMQ motif to share with you in a mini tutorial next week (update – you can find the motifs here). As you will see, I have had a lot of fun with it.

She'll be Apples quilt

The Beary Colourful BOM update

The rest of my sewing time this week has been dedicated to testing my pattern for the Blue Bear block for the Beary Colourful BOM in February. Super fun. There will be sneak peeks on facebook closer to the end of the month, so  like Clever Chameleon on FB to meet the blue bear before Feb 1!

red bear from Beary Colourful BOM
My original red bear

In the meantime, I am deliriously happy to see a few red bears appearing on the internet and social media. Have you made your red bear yet? There is still time to do a bear, or another red project to enter into Jen’s Color Challenge linky party at the end of the month.

Bears on Instagram

The very first red bear shared with me was this cutie by Jeannette. Jeanette managed to share her bear with me via Instagram, despite us both being absolute rookies with this platform!  I am currently still getting the hang of this social medium, so I don’t actively promote my account yet. But if you would like to share your red bears with me via Instagram you will find me at @cleverchameleon. 

Jeannette's Red Bear for the Beary Colourful BOM
Jeannette’s Bear

Notice how Jeannette has used a fussy-cut cupcake fabric print to fill in the tummy? This is a brilliant idea and a great tip for beginners. It is also a good option for anyone on a tight time budget.

Bears on facebook

More bears….. Several people have also been kind enough to share their bears with me on facebook. I was very excited when Denise shared her bear-in-progress, because she is doing turned edge appliqué! I have to take my hat off to her, as I thought some of the small details might not transfer well to this technique. But she has included everything! 

Denise's red bear for the Beary Colourful BOM
Denise’s bear

Jean has made her red bear in raw edge appliqué with pink paws and a beautiful mottled background fabric. Isn’t he a character? Jean has been so encouraging as well – thanks Jean!

Jean's red bear from the Beary Colourful BOM
Jean’s bear

Bears on the Internet

Finally, I want to share that Lynette from What a Hoot Quilts has made her red bear too. She wasn’t supposed to start a new project just now – but I’m so glad she did. I especially want to show you Lynette’s, because she is doing her bears Quilt-As-You-Go. This is another great idea that you could do too.

Lynette's red bear fromt he Beary Colourful BOM
Lynette’s bear

Isn’t everyone so clever? I hope I get to see lots more red bears at Jen’s link up in late January. But if you would like to share them with me in the meantime, I am all eyes.  You can send me a pic on Instagram (@cleverchameleon), via facebook or email (scroll right to the bottom and you will find the envelope icon).

P.S. Have you been following the latest Island Batik Ambassador blog hop? This is the last project for the 2017 Ambassadors, and I am really enjoying this hop. So many great ideas from so many talented quilters. Today there is a wow! quilt on the the hop at Slice of Pi Quilts. Wander over and have a look.

P.P.S. Linking up with Freemotion by the River,  The Inquiring Quilter, Quilt Fabrication, Sew Fresh Quilts, My Quilt Infatuation, Confessions of a Quilt Addict, Crazy Mom Quilts, Busy Hands Quilts.

Freemotion by the river

Wednesday Wait Loss Featured  


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. Thanks for your support!

The Beary Colourful BOM: Beginners Tips

bear with button eyes

Tips to help with the Beary Colourful BOM if you are a Beginner or don’t FMQ

Red bearThis will be the last Beary Colourful post for a while (I hope). A few days ago I touched on the question of whether you can do the Beary Colourful BOM if you are a beginner.

Let’s start by saying two important things.

  1. You can do whatever you want! Just because I wouldn’t consider the bears to be a beginner pattern, doesn’t mean that you can’t give it a crack. You won’t know what you can do until you try. 
  2. But…. don’t fall out of love with appliqué if the bear poses too much of a challenge at the moment. There are parts of the bear that call for some experience and quilting is definitely not meant to be frustrating.

So, I have come up with a short list of adjustments/tips that you can make if there are parts of the bear that might frustrate you.

Beginners Tips for the Red Bear

Use Batiks

Use batik fabrics for the applique pieces. Batiks have a tighter, finer weave than most quilting cottons and this means they are more fray resistant. They also are dyed right through, which means that any stray threads are less noticeable. Printed fabrics are usually white on the back, so frayed edges show this white and are more obvious. Using batik for raw edge appliqué is a good idea even if you are not a beginner. I have been appliquéing for much of my quilting career, and I only ever compromise on this point for one thing – if I can’t get a batik in the colour I want! Batiks reign supreme for raw edge appliqué. And I would have said this even  if I had been refused for the 2018 Island Batik team!

batik fabrics
Batiks will give you the edge….. boom, boom! 🙂

Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

Don’t do the tiny details. Delete the butterfly’s spots, and the shine on the nose. Or add them with a few hand stitches instead.

Simplify the Bear

Remove the bear’s spiky hairstyle.  You can find an altered pdf here that will allow you to make a bear with a smooth head (you will still need the original pdf file as well – available on this post). Add the beginners’ pages to the original pattern.

Change the Eyes

Substitute the appliquéd eyes for felt circles or buttons. Just promise me you won’t do this if you plan to gift the quilt to a child under 3 years old. Choking hazards should always be a primary consideration if you are making quilts for young children and babies. And always sew buttons on very securely and check them periodically. Drawing the eyes on with a permanent fabric texta is a good option if the quilt is for a very young child and you wish to avoid appliquéing the eyes. I have provided a positioning guide for the eyes in the beginners’ pdf if you choose to use buttons (or safety eyes).

buttons for eyes
I don’t have any really suitable buttons on hand today, but you could explore the huge variety of buttons out there for fantastic bear eyes.

Use a Normal Sewing Stitch, not Free Motion Stitching

Sew the appliqué down with a wide sewing machine stitch such as zigzag or blanket stitch. This should be relatively straightforward if you have removed the hair spikes and eliminated the impossibly small pieces. And sew slowly.

blanket stitch
A sample of blanket stitch around raw edge appliqué

Take a deep breath and believe you can!

I think they are all the suggestions I would like to make. If you can think of more beginner’s tips please add them in the comments – that would be very helpful. 🙂

If you haven’t done a lot of raw edge appliqué before I hope you will still give the bears a go. It’s going to be a very fun quilt.

How to Appliqué the Red Bear Block

Red Bear Free Motion appliqué

How to put together the Red Bear of New Beginnings

One of the techniques I have done a lot since I learned to free motion quilt is raw edge free motion appliqué. Primarily because free motion appliqué is the fastest form of appliqué I know. And for me, currently, fast is good……. I have young kids and an often travelling husband…..

But there is also another reason…. I have found that free motion appliqué is a great way to improve my free motion skills for quilting. The act of tracing around a shape several times in a row. then another shape, and another shape (and so on) has definitely helped with my FMQ confidence and accuracy. 

So, if you are still working on your free motion quilting skills and don’t do raw edge free motion appliqué yet, you might just want to give it a go. Here’s how to do it, using the Red Bear Block from the Beary Colourful BOM as an example.

What you will need to make the Red Bear appliqué block

Before we get started, if you haven’t got the Red Bear of New Beginnings pattern yet, you can download it here from yesterday’s blog post. Reminder: if you are a beginner and don’t want to jump in the deep end, I will share a slightly simplified pattern later this week once I have the all main instructions posted.

Here is also a brief reiteration of everything you will need to make the Red Bear block. If you require more detail, this list was covered more fully yesterday.

  • Background fabric 13.5″ by 17″
  • Thin batting for trapunto 11″ x 15″.
  • Fusible paper-backed fabric adhesive (for example vliesofix). 15″ x 24″
  • Red fabric scraps for the main sections of the bear. The whole bear requires the equivalent of 6″ x 24″ of red fabric. 
  • White/light colour fabric scraps for the muzzle and tummy,  5″ x 8″. Or 10″ x 8″ if you would like to make the light fabrics double layered.
  • Various coloured small fabric scraps for eyes, nose, mouth, paws, inner ears and tummy motif appliqué shapes. 
  • Machine embroidery or sewing threads to match your appliqué fabrics 
  • General tools: sewing machine, iron etc, teflon ironing sheet or baking paper, small sharp scissors, pencil, chalk/washout fabric marker, quilting pins, black permanent fabric marker, curved blade embroidery snips, greaseproof paper.

Where to start

Step 1

First, print out your appliqué templates. Pay attention to the size of the check box on the printout. It is actually really important that this box is square. If it is not square, then all sorts of bad things will happen. I.e. your pieces won’t all overlap, your bear will be misshapen and rain will fall on your nearly dry washing….. just kidding about that last one, but the other two consequences are 100% true. 

Step 2

Choose whether you are making the Butterfly Bear or the Beetle Bear and tape together the large outline of the entire bear. This is a placement guide to build your bear appliqué over later. Put it aside.

Red Bear Appliqué assembly guide

Step 3

Now, from the appliqué pieces pattern sheets (the first 5 pages of the Red Bear pattern) trace your appliqué shapes onto the paper side of your fusible fabric adhesive. The pieces are already reversed to give you a bear that faces the same way as my sample. The arrows indicate the top of each piece. Leave space between the tracings so that you can cut out the pieces with 1/8th inch or slightly more excess paper around them.

Step 4

fused adhesive for raw edge appliqué
Red Bear pieces fused onto my scrap of red batik

Fuse each traced piece to the back of your chosen fabric, according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Protect your iron by covering your work with an non-stick ironing sheet or baking paper – the really shiny kind that is used for lining cookie baking trays. Carefully cut out each fused shape on the traced line. Cut the centre out of the “outer tummy” shape, so you get a tummy doughnut.

baking paper
Here’s the baking paper I use for appliqué. I save the cheap stuff for cooking with…… 🙂

Building the Appliqué for the Red Bear Block

Step 5

Lay your bear outline face up on your ironing board and cover it with a see-through teflon ironing sheet or baking paper, I have an ironing sheet (somewhere) but I had to use baking paper because it is lost. I did mention that taking control of my sewing space is a 2018 goal.….. Actually I like using baking paper for this step, because I can happily stick pins through the baking paper and the template into my ironing board, and nothing moves.

baking paper over appliqué template

Step 6

Peel the paper backing off your appliqué pieces. If you can get them off in one piece, save the backing paper pieces from the left foot, both arms, the tummy, muzzle and head (otherwise you will just have to trace them again later – no biggy).

Place the arms, legs and outer ears into position and tack each down with a quick touch of the iron. If anything moves out of place carefully peel it off the baking paper and try again.

red bear appliqué first layer
First layer of the red bear appliqué temporarily adhered to baking paper.

Step 7

Join up all the limbs by adding the outer tummy ring over the top.

Tummy added to red bear appliqué

Step 8

Now add the inner ears over the outer ears and lightly press. Notice that the edges of the outer ear and the inner ear pieces are slightly offset? This creates a gradual decrease in layers under the head, and prevents a pronounced  bump forming on the head at the edge of the ear pieces.

offset appliqué layers

Step 9

Now add the main head section and the feet, overlapping the already placed pieces.

Step 10

Add the tummy centre and muzzle. If you wish to make the white areas double layered, now is the time to do that (use fusible adhesive to stick two layers of fabric together before you cut out the white shapes).

comparison of one vs two layers of fabric
Upper picture shows muzzle with one layer of white fabric. Lower picture has two layers of fabric on the muzzle.

Step 11

Add the whites of the eyes, the irises, the nose, mouth and paws. You most likely will not be able to see the position guidelines through your appliqué now, with the possible exception of the white areas. You can position your pieces by eye, or if you want them placed exactly, you can use the following trick:

Take the saved backing papers from your appliqué pieces (or trace new shapes on tracing paper if the originals tore during the removal process). Move your bear (still on the baking paper) off the appliqué positioning guide. Use the guide to trace the positions of the paws, facial features and tummy motif onto the backing papers.

add details to backing paper
This arm backing paper now has the paw location marked on it

Align the marked backing paper over the corresponding part of your bear appliqué. For instance, this arm backing paper now has the position of the paw marked on it. Gently slide the paw piece in under the arm backing paper  until the paw piece is aligned with the paw outline on the backing paper. Press to fix the paw in place. 

Align paw under backing paper
Align paw under backing paper and iron down

Actually, you can see this process better with an eye…..

aligning eye with backing paper
White eye piece aligned under marked backing paper

Repeat with two remaining paws and the facial features.

appliqué bear face
Bear face all assembled

Step 12 – Butterfly motif

Add the butterfly motif. The butterfly construction follows the same method as the paws and face (step 11).

butterfly assembled
Butterfly appliqué assembled

Step12a – Beetle motif

To do the beetle, use your favourite marking method (chalk, pencil, washout pen, greaseprroof paper) to mark out the beetle’s legs. Then either: use the permanent fabric marker to draw the beetle’s legs. Or, if you are confident with FMQ, you can thread paint the legs in a later step (and go straight to step 14 now).

If you have drawn the legs on, you can now add the beetle body. If you wish to thread paint the legs, leave the beetle body off.

Step 13

Mark the pupils with the permanent fabric pen. I thread paint over these later, but you could leave them as is, or hand embroider them instead.

add details with texta
Add small details with permanent marker

Step 14

Once you are happy that all of your pieces are in place, give the appliqué a thorough pressing to adhere all the pieces together. Once it has cooled, your appliqué should peel off the baking paper in one large piece.

Lay the bear onto the centre of your block background fabric and iron down.

Step 15

Lay the whole block over the polyester batting and pin into place with a few quilting pins around the bear.

pinned block
Pin the polyester batting under the bear. Make sure the whole bear is sitting over batting.

Step 16

Set your machine up as you would for free motion quilting. 

Starting with the white areas, sew straight stitch around the edge of every piece to secure the appliqué. If your quilt is to be a wall hanging, one or two rounds of stitching around each raw edge will suffice. However, if you would like to make this as a bed quilt to be used and loved, stitch around each appliqué piece 4 or 5 times. 

White appliqué done
White appliqué areas stitched down with free motion straight stitch

Step 16a

If you are thread painting the beetle legs, do these next.  I used my favourite marking method….. drawing onto greaseproof paper and stitching around the outline. You can find out more about this method here.

Marking out the beetle legs with greaseproof paper
Marking out the beetle legs with greaseproof paper
stitching on greaseproof paper
Once the outline is stitched, remove the paper before you colour in the shapes.
thread painting
Thread paint in the legs and antennae
thread painting done
Thread painting all done

Press the beetle body into place. It will hide the travel stitching between each appendage.

finished beetle
Press on the remaining beetle parts

Step 17

Free motion stitch around all the remaining raw edges as for the white areas in Step 16. 

Don’t forget to add a few stitches of white to give his nose some shine. And of course, thread paint or embroider the pupils.

Step 18

Remove the safety pins. Turn your finished work over and carefully cut away the batting just outside the perimeter of the bear. Take care not cut your fabric or stitching, just the batting!! Curved embroidery scissors work wonderfully for this job. The result is padding left behind the bear, so that the bear will be a greater thickness than the surrounding quilt. For those who have never heard of trapunto, that is exactly what this is.

Back of appliqué
The back of your appliqué should look something like this
Cut away excess batting
All excess batting cut away.

Once the excess batting has been removed your red bear block is done! Fabulous!

If you have any trouble with the pattern please let me know.  And don’t forget to link up a photo with Jen’s linky party at the end of January.

Then hold tight for the Blue Bear of February.

Red Clever Chameleon logoAnd  to finish off, I didn’t forget that it is Tuesday…… and the first Colour Inspiration Tuesday of the year, no less! I do admit that this past week has been a bit manic getting the Beary Colourful BOM up and running, so there has been no time for my usual dose of wandering creative thoughts….. so we will simply take this opportunity to celebrate the colours of the Butterfly Bear of New Beginnings. Happy Colour Inspiration Tuesday!!

Beary Red Colour scheme from Clever Chameleon


Don’t want to miss a bear in the Beary Colourful BOM? You can follow my blog directly for email updates, or through Bloglovin’. Sneak peeks of next month’s bear will also appear throughout the year at Clever Chameleon Quilting on Facebook. All your follow options can be found here

December 2017 Roundup

December 2017 at Clever Chameleon

One Monthly Goal Check-in and December 2017 Roundup

At the beginning of December I nominated my ongoing Vanuatu Turtle Quilt for my specific One Monthly Goal at Elm Street Quilts. The finished quilt is not due to be linked up at Busy Hands Quilts’ Splash of Color quilt along until January 16. But I know that quilt construction has a habit of expanding to take up all available time. And I want the Vanuatu Turtle quilt done so that I can get on with some other really interesting projects in January. So I decided to bring the “deadline” forward to the 31st December.

So, I am glad to report that the Vanuatu Turtle is finished! 🙂 It measures 60″ square.

Vanuatu Turtle Quilt by Clever Chameleon

Thank you to my dearest husband who eventually managed to help me get this photo under natural light.

I think I may have an opening for a new quilt holder-upperer ….. at first DH was holding this quilt not only upside down but also back-to-front. I honestly thought he was just being facetious……. But, apparently, no. And he swears he reads the blog….. 

Back of Vanuatu Turtle Quilt
I took the opportunity to get a photo of the back of the Vanuatu Turtle quilt (upside down, but who’s to know?!)

Vanuatu Turtle Quilt

Vanuatu Turtle Quilt

So there we have it. A finished memento from our family’s work trip to Vanuatu.  I’m thankful to Myra of Busy Hands Quilts for running the Splash of Color quit along this year, as without it, the Vanuatu Turtle Quilt would likely never have happened. It would still be like the throw quilt I mean to make from some fabrics I bought in Thailand 3 years ago….

The Vanuatu Quilt – blow by blow

If you’d like to go back and read about the conception, design and construction of the Vanuatu Turtle quilt, here are the relevant posts in order:

Where the Vanuatu Quilt concept started
More about the fabrics and the turtle appliqué pieces cut
Designing the black and white background on the fly
Finishing the black and white quilt top
Adding the first layer of the turtle appliqué
Adding the second layer of the turtle appliqué
Quilting design for the Vanuatu Turtle quilt

I said I was going to find out what being finished early feels like. So. What does it feel like to be done before the last minute? Weird. And slightly sad – I have liked working on this quilt and now it’s over. Perhaps the gasping sense of relief of going down to the wire has its upsides after all! hahahaha. Don’t worry, the melancholy hasn’t lasted – I have so many other projects to turn to. I have already done some therapy fabric cutting today. And not on the project I should be working on either. See, that’s better!

What else happened at Clever Chameleon in December 2017?

Well, we had another 4 Colour Inspiration Tuesdays.

Week 1

We explored the colours of a fake-looking Australian plant called the Wax Flower Plant or Hoya. And we used it as a launch point for a Christmas decoration made of couched thread and beads. Not strictly quilting, but it is a method I use for embellishing quilts, and these ornaments are a good way to get your hand in with this technique. 

Christmas Stars color scheme from Clever Chameleon
Christmas Star colour scheme
Christmas Star Ornament
Christmas Star couched thread ornament

This post was a full tutorial, and showed how to make Christmas Trees and Christmas Bells as well.

Week 2

In the second week of December, Kathy of Tamarack Shack Longarm Quilting shared a tip about chalk being visible under blacklight. So I got all excited and the testing of this tip resulted in a blue colour scheme.

Blacklight Blue colour scheme from Clever Chameleon
Blacklight Blue colour scheme

And I received my own blacklight for Christmas.  So now I can play with this technique some more. Sweet husbands who can’t tell the front of a quilt from the back still have their uses. hahahahaha. Thanks dearest!

Week 3

I was reading the newsletter from our local state Botanic Garden when I discovered the strangest flower I have possibly ever seen. This flower quacks me up, so I had to feature it on Colour Inspiration Tuesday!

Flying Duck Orchid color scheme from Clever Chameleon
Flying Duck Orchid colour scheme

Flying Duck Orchid colour scheme from Clever Chameleon

I would like to have the time to turn this flower into an appliqué at some point. Just for fun. The flying duck shape of this Australian native orchid is just the start of the strangeness – you can read more about this flower here.

Week 4

This was only yesterday – and we celebrated the colour red in all its glory. This is because we are leading up to the 2018 Monthly Color Challenge. And the first colour off the rank will be red.

Red colour scheme from Clever Chameleon
January is Red colour scheme 

Beyond Colour Inspiration Tuesdays

hibiscus FMQ design

What else happened at Clever Chameleon in December 2017? Well, lots of Vanuatu Turtle quilt construction, but we’ve already covered that. Probably the only thing of note we haven’t covered is that the Vanuatu Turtle quilting post includes a mini tutorial on how to freemotion quilt hibiscus flowers.

I also extended the couched thread Christmas Ornament tutorial to include a fourth variation – a glittery bauble. This was a guest post on Days Filled with Joy blog.

And we have been getting organised to start 2018 at full speed with the Beary Colourful BOM – part of the Monthly Color Challenge at Patterns by Jen.

Beary Colourful BOM at Clever Chameleon

I hope you will be joining us for this one!

 

100 Posts!

So, that was December 2017. And this is my 100th post since I started blogging back on the 26th April. It seems very fitting to be able to report a complete quilt finish for my 100th post!

Oh boy, the things I have learned since I launched this blog! And all the amazing people I have “met”! Thank you to all of you for reading my blog and a special thank you to all the people who have connected in some way. I hope that 2018 is going to be a year of great things!

I’m now off to share my December OMG success on Elm Street Quilts.

P.S. In the next few days I also hope to also be participating in several end of year linkys. In particular, Cheryl of Meadow in the Mist is holding a Best of 2017 Linky Party. You might like to head over there now. A collection of the year’s best quilt blog posts ought to be really good reading! And there are several other goal-setting linkys for 2018 which I’d like to sit down and muse over if I can find the time.

P.P.S Also sharing on Freemotion by the River, Quilt Fabrication, Sew Fresh Quilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Inquiring Quilter, Crazy Mom Quilts,  Busy Hands Quilts. and a new linky: Powered by Quilting

Wednesday Wait Loss Featured

P.P.P.S. This post has now been linked up with the Last Splash of Color linky.


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. Thanks for your support!

2018 Monthly Colour Challenge BOM: Official Launch!!!

2108 Monthly Color Challenge

It’s Time!

The 2018 Color Challenge at Patterns by Jen has officially launched and all the important details have been finalised. Here at Clever Chameleon we will be joining in with Jen’s colour challenge with the Beary Colourful BOM in Jen’s monthly colours. 

Beary Colourful BOM at Clever Chameleon

This adventure starts very soon, on January 1. Below is everything you need to know that wasn’t included in everything I already told you on Friday…… If you specifically want to be a part of the free Beary Colourful BOM, read Friday’s post as well.

My Fellow Colour Challenge Bloggers

Apart from Jen Shaffer of Patterns by Jen, and myself, there are six other quilt bloggers who are committed to making this whole-year blog hop an astounding success. They are:

Joanne of Quilts By Joanne
Diane Cullum of Sewing with D

 

If in doubt, call us all “Jen” – you will have a nearly 50% chance of being right!!! Lol. As it is, when I tell people my name they sometimes think I said “Jenny”. Dione rhymes with Leonne, but there isn’t a lot of phonetic difference between D and J. And Jeonne sounds wrong, so Jenny it becomes…… In contrast, when I write my name, people read Dion or Diane. So there you have it, an impromptu discussion on why my blog has a random name like “Clever Chameleon”, not something like “Dione Quilts”, You may blame my parents, although Dad squarely blames my Mum. 🙂

Anyway, I digress, and I must get to the best part! Sponsors!

Meet the Sponsors

Jen has done a marvellous job in finding sponsors for this colour challenge. I know for a fact that this challenge blog hop was a fairly last minute idea, but look at this line up of sponsors! Details about which sponsors are sponsoring which months will be forthcoming as they are finalised.

And there is a Grand Prize as well!!

For every month you enter the colour challenge link up at Patterns by Jen, you get an entry for the grand prize. Which is to have your quilt top quilted by Jen of Dizzy Quilter! Not to be confused with Jen of Patterns by Jen……

There are a few conditions, understandably. Your quilt top can be up to 90″ x 90″ (US$202.50 value!), you must provide the backing, 8″ longer than width and length. Batting can be purchased from Jen, for $20, if you like.

Return shipping is included for US residents only. And the quilt will not be trimmed or bound, those services are extra. It is a fantastic prize!

Coming Back to Earth….

Tomorrow we will put aside our Beary Colourful excitement for a bit and have a more traditional Colour Inspiration Tuesday. 

Do you remember my Hoya, or Wax Flower? I had a few comments about it seeming so fake. Well, I assure you, not only is it real, but it’s oddity pales into insignificance in light of another Australian flower. The Australian orchid I discovered through our local state Botanic Gardens the other day just cracks me up! But that’s all I’m telling you until tomorrow!


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