Everyday Quilt Inspiration: Poppies

31 Days of Finding Quilt Inspiration in Real Life

Today I did something a little bit different. I attended the unveiling of a new pair of plaques honouring all the war veterans who came/come from the Karoonda district. Karoonda is a small country town in South Australia where my only surviving great aunt lives. And where my maternal grandfather and grandmother first met and courted many decades ago.

Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday: Day 15

After travelling so much for the last two weeks, I was very grateful to share a ride to Karoonda (about an hour and half away) with my aunt, uncle and a cousin. As well as attending the memorial and unveiling ceremony, I was thrilled to visit my great aunt. Aunty Dorothy is the original rabid quilter in my family. As you can imagine, we always have a lot to talk about. I wish she lived closer!

When my great aunt is not quilting, she is gardening. And today her garden was a mass of spring flowers. Roses, irises and poppies. Lots and lots of beautiful poppies.

How was I inspired by the poppies?

After being away from home for 2 weeks, I have been a little surprised by Spring. It definitely arrived while we were away! And yesterday, Aunty’s garden was in full-bloom.

Poppies in Aunt Dorothy's garden — Poppies and more poppies!

Spring Poppies color scheme from Clever Chameleon — A colour board from Aunt Dorothy’s garden

So it seemed more than appropriate to do a Spring mood board from Aunty Dorothy’s garden.

But more relevant to the theme of today’s visit to Karoonda, it turns out that Aunty Dorothy also has a patch of Flanders Poppies that she grew from seeds gifted to her. Flanders Poppies are the distinctive red and black flowers from France that are now used widely in Anzac and Remembrance Day ceremonies in Australia. There weren’t many open Flanders Poppies to see in her garden, because she had donated them all to today’s ceremony.

Here is part of one of the new plaques. My Grandpa’s name is on there (F.A. Longmire, WWII). As is my Great Uncle Geoff’s (WWII) and a great-great uncle’s (WWI). A fourth very distant relative is also named, but the connection with him is many many generations back. I do know where he fits in the family forest thanks to someone else’s hard work, but I won’t bore you with the details.

More than just colour inspiration

Between the two new plaques is the main gate to the town’s oval. I was also quilt-inspired by these gates, with their plastic poppy tributes and rosemary attached.

Poppies on gate — Poppy and Rosemary tributes at the unveiling

This geometric design would make a great quilt border, especially adorned with poppy appliqués. It’s not often that I get inspired to make a quilt border without having a clue what the centre of the quilt should be. But that is the case this time!

What would you place in the middle of a quilt with a really strong, geometric border design like this? Do you have memorial traditions that would translate to a meaningful quilt?

Comments make my day and I and would love to know your ideas. Thanks for dropping by today. Hope to see you again tomorrow!

P.S. If you would like to know more about why Flanders Poppies mean so much to Australian Veterans, you can read a short story here. Rosemary is also a significant symbol for Anzac Day.

P.P.S. If you have not been following along with my 31 Days of Everyday Quilt Inspiration series, and would like to, you should start here.

October 14, 2017January 19, 2024

Everyday Quilt Inspiration: Book and Movie Characters

31 Days of Finding Quilt Inspiration in Real Life

There is nowhere like home! It’s nice to be back in Australia with my sewing machines and fast internet. And my furry quilting helper! The second half of my Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday series is likely to be be much more everyday than the first half. And in my house, there is nothing more everyday than a children’s book. I read to both my kids before bed most evenings, and have done since they were babies. Like my mother did for me. That is a lot of bedtime stories!

Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday: Day 14

A significant proportion of the world’s quilts seem to be made for children. Babies on their way, babies just born, sons, daughters, grandchildren, nieces, nephews….. etc etc. And I find that kids love a good size quilt…. for sleeping, emotional comfort, cuddling on the couch, picnics, making cubby houses… wherever their imagination takes them.

characters from children's stories

So today I want to briefly discuss a common source of inspiration I often see used on kids’ quilts. That is, popular characters from children’s books and movies. There are upsides and downsides to using your child’s favourite story characters as quilt inspiration, as we shall see.

Why do people like characters on quilts?

There are at least three good reasons why people consider kids’ story characters for quilt inspiration:

The first is that the illustrations in many children’s stories are relatively simple, so they make great shapes for appliqué and paper-pieced designs.
Secondly, if your child loves a particular book character (or TV/movie character), they are going to love the quilt. So you get to simplify your process, and impress the little person in your life in one go!
And thirdly, there are often licensed prints or panels that you can pair with your creations to make the quilt bigger or to use as the perfect backing.

Why shouldn’t I make character quilts?

Despite these attractions, I recommend caution if you are considering making character-based quilts. There is one massive reason to be very careful. And that is, unlicensed fandom quilts featuring copyrightable characters are a form of copyright infringement.

That said, fan art is usually tolerated as benign unless you are prolific and/or profiting from your creations. Fan art is even encouraged by some copyright holders to increase the public interest in their original works. But not everyone feels this way. So, if you must make a quilt featuring a character or story, get permission if possible. Only make character quilts as one-off love gifts for children in your immediate circle. Keep the process private….. it is unwise to share your patterns with the intention of strangers making it too, or to sell your adorable creation on Etsy. Please note, none of this constitutes legal advice, just common sense. Any fan art you create is at your own risk. You can also read an interesting article about the tensions between fan art and copyright here.

How can I be inspired then?

A more ethical way to use children’s stories to inspire a quilt is to use general ideas to create your own works. There is no hazard in making a caterpillar quilt with nibbled food-stuffs. As long as it isn’t The Hungry Caterpillar. Likewise, you can safely make a pattern for a quilt with a puppy doing something fun on it – as long as that puppy is not Kipper or Spot… or a myriad of other distinctive fun-loving puppies.

But I acknowledge this isn’t really possible for all characters. My son would love a Pokémon quilt – only actual Pokémon need apply. And I have long thought that the Mr. Men would make great appliqués. “Mr Generic Persons” isn’t really going to cut it. But if I do ever make either of these quilts, you won’t find them here. That’ll be between me and my small friends!

October 12, 2017January 19, 2024

Everyday Quilt Inspiration: Pineapples and Other Art

31 Days of Finding Quilt Inspiration in Real Life

It doesn’t matter where I go, or how far from my sewing machine I am, there always seems to be a little voice that follows me around saying “Look at that…. you could put that on a quilt……” Of course, that little voice is actually startlingly loud at the moment. Since I am documenting one such instance everyday for this series, I have entered a kind-of hyper-vigilant quilt-inspiration-observation state! But, while noticing quilt patterns in the everyday is not unusual for me, recording them is. Usually the ideas come and then they depart, with no real effort to record them for when I might want them later.

pineapple stencils on wall — Pineapples stencilled on the kitchen wall in our Vanuatu accommodation

Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday: Day 12

One good thing about travelling is that you get exposed to a lot of new art. Even if you don’t visit art galleries and museums. There are new sculptures in public spaces to notice. There are artworks on the walls of cafés. Murals on buildings. Tiles in the public restrooms…. oh yes, I spend much more time than I would care to admit contemplating the merit of floor tile designs while I am attending to business.

green floor tiles — Floor tiles in a local Indian restaurant

So for my last ad lib post from Vanuatu, I am going to tackle the idea of finding inspiration in the artworks displayed around me. I have chosen three ideas from my recent unintentional brushes with art.

How am I inspired by the art around me?

Firstly, the pineapples…..

I have a thing about pineapples. I am certain that there is a pineapple-inspired quilt in my future. This is mostly because there is a story from my family history that revolves around pineapples – not because I have some sort of bizarre fetish for pineapples. (You can read about the pineapple story here.) Actually, I don’t even particularly like pineapple, except on pizza.

I think my pineapple quilt will be an abstract representation related to my family’s pineapple story. But the pineapple art stencilled on my kitchen wall is reminding me that it also wouldn’t be that difficult to appliqué a pineapple on a quilt. 🙂 And it just so happens that the village we worked in today has a large pineapple patch in their garden…..hence the pineapple colour board. It is actually possible the pineapples are stalking me….

Secondly, the floor tiles…..

I spotted these tiles at an Indian restaurant here in Port Vila the other evening. I was very taken by the continuous design evident on these tiles when they are laid edge-to-edge. Wouldn’t it be fun to do something like this with a repeated quilt block? For no real reason except that we can?

And thirdly, a carved sculpture……

I haven’t ever considered incorporating ideas from sculptures into a quilt before. There have been some lovely wood carvings here in Vanuatu, as well as carved tree fern trunks. I could definitely free-motion quilt a representation of this guy. Maybe this would be a good idea for quilting my black, white and red Vanuatu quilt.

It suddenly occurred to me to look for quilt designs in sculptures thanks to Yanicka and her contribution to the current Art with Fabric blog hop. I love all the entries in the blog hop so far, but Yanicka got me thinking with a quilt called “Our Fragile Vessel” which was inspired by a spherical sculpture by Donna Marcus.

Speaking of the Art with Fabric blog hop…. tomorrow is finally my turn to show you my art-inspired quilted contribution! I have been waiting to publish this post for ages! It is doubling as my Everyday Quilt Inspiration series slot for tomorrow, so I hope you will come back to find out what I did. And I hope you will visit the blog hop and enjoy all the other art-inspired quilts as well.

See you tomorrow!

October 8, 2017January 19, 2024

Everyday Quilt Inspiration: Tanna Island Quilt

Mt Yasur volcano color scheme from Clever Chameleon

31 Days of Finding Quilt Inspiration in Real Life

Yesterday, I told you about our adventures on Tanna Island, and served you up some colour inspiration straight from the depths of Mt. Yasur. I hope you got a sense of how spectacular the volcano tour was. It would be a shame not to honour that experience with a full attempt at quilt inspiration.

Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday: Day 8

Mt Yasur colour scheme from Clever Chaneleon Today being Sunday has given me more time to work on this post than most days. So I have happily been working on translating my volcano quilt idea mentioned yesterday into a visual representation to show you today.

First, I gathered the inspiration photos I needed. Apart from the ridiculously large colour board from yesterday, I also needed some visual references for the sea surrounding Tanna Island and the jungle that grows right up to the base of the volcano.

Here are the photos that I chose:

Jungle on Tanna Island, Vanuatu — The jungle on Tanna Island.

At the base of Mt Yasur — The rock formations and grey sides of the Mt Yasur volcano.

Tanna Island beach — The coast of Tanna Island, with volcanic sand beach.

How was I inspired by Tanna Island?

I wanted to capture all of the colours of Tanna Island in a design that could be pieced into a quilt. I thought the design should be evocative of both the volcano and the other areas of Tanna Island.

Tanna Island quilt design by Clever Chameleon — My Tanna Island quilt idea

So, I set up a grid of half-square triangles and coloured them in to represent the ocean, the sands, the jungle, the sides of Mt Yasur, the ash/steam and sulphur plumes, and the after-dark fireworks show. To tie it all together and add interest, I set myself the goal of having a secondary design. I used colour value contrast to create the illusion of diamonds and zigzags throughout the design.

Quilting Tanna Island?

I am not sure that I will ever get to making this Tanna Island quilt. One Vanuatu quilt on the go is probably quite enough! And while it is a simple matter to design a quilt with so many colours, it is quite another to translate it into real fabrics. This design would be a BIG project. But all that said, not all inspiration needs to be acted upon to be useful or good. Every time you stretch yourself to think outside your usual quilting habits you grow your skills and reinforce resources to draw on in the future. Ideas have a habit of percolating until they are needed one day. I’ll be letting “Tanna Island” percolate for a time. 🙂

What about you? Do you keep a journal or record of quilt ideas you might like to explore one day? In some ways, that is what this 31 days of everyday quilt inspiration slot is becoming for me. An ideas journal, with you to keep me focused on getting the ideas recorded. Thanks for being here!

P.S. The latest Art with Fabric Blog Hop starts tomorrow! FInally! My post is on Friday, but you can find the rest of the week’s itinerary in the meantime at Tweety Loves Quilting. It should be a really interesting collection. See you there! 🙂

October 5, 2017January 19, 2024

Everyday Quilt Inspiration: Hermit Crabs

Hermit Crabs color scheme from Clever Chameleon

31 Days of Finding Quilt Inspiration in Real Life

Yesterday we stopped for a picnic lunch at a little spot where the beach is accessible, between the two Vanuatu villages we are working in.

Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday: Day 5

Hermit crabs in Vanuatu

Once we had settled and stopped moving around, we discovered that the pebbly beach was swarming with tiny hermit crabs. The smallest were wearing shells of less than half an inch long. The biggest one we found was less than an inch and a half in length. They were fast and shy, disappearing instantly if anyone moved suddenly or cast a shadow over them. Of course, hermit crabs are a novelty to my family. But they are everyday critters for the Ni-Vanuatu villagers here.

How was I inspired by the Hermit Crabs?

Hermit crabs in Vanuatu Well, while the kids ruined their shoes by getting “unintentionally” wet in the ocean, I amused myself by trying to get photos of the tiny, speedy hermit crabs. When I looked at the photos later, I thought several might make good starting points for appliqué designs.

So here is my first mock-up of a design for a hermit crab appliqué from the photo above.

Hermit Crab appliqué design by Clever Chameleon

For the most part I traced the approximate shapes of the crab from the photo.

What about you? Do you use your photos to help you draw appliqués? If you are not a confident drawer, taking pictures of your subjects and tracing them is a good way to generate original designs that mean something special to you. Start with a photo of a loved one, a flower from your garden, a piece of fruit, an interesting leaf, a pet, your favourite ornaments…… the everyday objects around you that you could appliqué are almost endless.