Vintage Inspiration from an Adventure Day to Historic Port Adelaide
On the weekend, our Joey Scouts (6-8yo) had a transport-themed adventure day. We went on a bus, then a tram, then a train, then a boat. Then we went to the Aviation Museum to look at planes, and finally took two more trains back. I don’t know about the kids, but by the time we got home, I was exhausted!
The major destinations of our day were located in historic Port Adelaide, one of the oldest parts of our city. Since the Island Batik Ambasador challenge for April is Vintage Inspired quilts, and Port Adelaide is dripping with history, I was on high alert for some vintage inspiration!
I am positively excited that it is time to meet the Beary Colourful Orange Bear!
April 1st. But no fools here…. just us coloured bears! And it is time to welcome another teddy to our growing family…. the Orange Bear of Positive Attitude. Also known as Thumbs Up Bear!
The fourth bear in the Beary Colourful Quilt BOM series is cheerful like his yellow cousin, but it is his enthusiasm that sets him apart. Know anyone who thinks that “Everything is AWESOME, I want to experience it all!!”? Orange bear is just like them. Positively positive!
Hopefully you will give the new bear the two thumbs up!
Colour Inspiration Tuesday: The next Colour in the 2018 Monthly Color Challenge is Orange.
This year at Clever Chameleon, the colour of the month is defined as our monthly focus colour in Jen Shaffer’s Monthly Color Challenge and blog hop. And with April nearly here, our thoughts are now turning to orange.
Orange is the colour of many things that I value very highly. Orange is associated with enthusiasm and fascination. Also, determination and encouragement, creativity, success, health and freedom. If that is not enough, orange symbolises balance and enjoyment too. That is one impressive list. By rights, orange should be my favourite colour! (But it’s not……)
Toasty Teal: More Colour Fun with Stitched in Color
Do you remember, waaaay back in August, we had a lot of fun with a fabric and colour challenge? Every so often, Rachel of Stitched in Color teams up with an online fabric store to run a mosaic contest where you are challenged to choose 9 fabrics to best represent a particular theme and present it to the world. Last time we explored the theme “Summer Crush”. Now you and I have the opportunity to do it all again! But this time the theme is “Toasty Teal”. I really hope you will join in the fun!
Toasty Teal……?
I love the colour teal. I also adore aquamarine and turquoise. And I am not always entirely sure which is which, or where the boundaries are, all being stunning variations of blue-green. It probably doesn’t even matter a great deal for this exercise, as teal is just the starting point for our inspiration. But just to silence any worries, here is the colour that Wikipedia defines as Teal: hex#008080. Teal is the deepest of the three related colours.
As Rachel so ably points out in her preamble to the challenge, teal is a very magnificent and versatile colour. It is fabulous with copper and rust and orange. I also like to pair it with purples or with variations of it’s complement, maroon. Teal sings with dusky pinks and peachy hues. For me teal is strongly associated with water and beaches, and as a regular performer in the most spectacular of sunsets. This teal challenge was triggered by Rachel’s thoughts around autumn, but it is early summer here, and we have already done our fair share of sweltering. But that’s ok, teal works great for toasty summers too. 🙂
My first round of fabric choices….
So with all this in mind, I perused the fabrics at this challenge’s sponsor’s shop, Bobby Lou’s Fabric Factory to make a mosaic that captured these sentiments. Of course, I also preserved my natural tendencies towards fabrics that celebrate playfulness. So, without further ado, I present to you my first mosaic: All Creatures Great and Fall!
Did you notice the pineapples I slipped in there? If you don’t know why, you have some catch up reading to do about the Pineapples vs Quilters conspiracy. hahaha 🙂 Start here to follow this slightly silly thread right back to the beginning, which was actually the post “Digging for Pineapples“, from the last mosaic challenge. Hmmm, anyway, moving right along……
My decision process…..
I started with the Lil Fox print from Michael Miller Fabrics. I really love the little toadstools in among the happy foxes, and the touch of purple of their coats against the teal. Nothing says autumn to me more than fungus. I can never resist taking pictures of curious fungi.
Then I added the buck heads (Art Gallery Fabrics), the petite raccoons (Blend Fabrics) and the hexagons (Art Gallery Fabrics) to emphasise teal and other blue-green tones in the mosaic. At this point there were 3 animal prints already, so I decided to see if I could find more. A seahorse print in coral pink? Perfect! And jellyfish in marine tones? Oooo yes. The jelly fish also pick out the yellow green of the flowers with the foxes. Both of these picks are Michael Miller Fabrics.
Now, to get some colour continuity I wanted to pick out some more fabrics with coral colour……enter the llamas and a hot desert sun by Free Spirit. I just loved adding this fabric, as it not only added support for the coral on the seahorse fabric but added some dark contrast, and extended the blue and blue-green colours by adding green to finish the analogous colour series. And of course, it is just. plain. fun. 🙂
I then added the stripes (called Trinket in Blush by Art Gallery Fabrics), that look like they should be on the llamas’ blankets. These stripes tie a lot of the colours together in one print. Happiness! For the ninth fabric I originally chose a cute snail and leaf print by Free Spirit that added more purple to the palette and screamed autumn to me. But it was really just a tad too busy. Then I found the aforementioned pineapples in oasis by Me+You. As if they were not going in! Sorry snails, you are out. You would make a great backing though!
A very hard choice……
And then, at the very last second, I relented of the pineapple silliness, because I found this beautiful bird print from Art Gallery Fabrics instead….. and if I was lucky enough to win this set, it would make more sense to create something with the birds rather than the pineapples. But I have to admit to being quite torn between them. Perhaps I’ll put the pineapples in my second mosaic…… Of course, let’s be honest, if I was in store right now I’d just buy them both. Hahahaha. 🙂 Here is the selection that I finally uploaded to Stitched in Color….
Want to join in? Come on, it’s fun and good practice!
There are several great reasons to join in this challenge, including two chances to win a fat quarter of each of the fabrics you use in your mosaic! You have until the 10th of December to enter up to two Toasty Teal mosaics in the contest for your chances to win. You can find all the details and the linky here.
Really you shouldn’t need another reason…. But apart from a chance to win fabric, I particularly like and recommend this exercise because it is good for the creative grey cells. As it happens, one of the photos Rachel used to set her mood was the 100th winner of a regular photography challenge run by Mark Wilson at Gizmodo. And Mark’s philosophy towards challenges with tight boundaries is this:
“I was always frustrated by the weekly assignments I’d had in my college video classes, never understanding why I was forced to tie one hand behind my back, creating a story in a single shot or without use of dialog. It wasn’t until a few years later that I realized I’d had the rare opportunity: to do isolated workouts for my creativity, to play with a single idea for that single idea’s sake, and, sure, to sometimes fail but have a fantastic excuse as to why I did.”
I see Colour Inspiration Tuesdays and related activities, such as Rachel’s mosaic challenges, in much the same light. Stretch yourself creatively, just a little, often. Gradually, you will grow your design skills, become practiced at finding inspiration and develop your own authentic creative voice. So, don’t pass up this easy opportunity! Do it!
Credits
The photos I used to set the Toasty Teal mood in this post are all from Unsplash. If you would like to use them for your own purposes, they are available to you, no strings attached. You don’t even have to acknowledge the artist who provided them, although I think we should if possible, don’t you? Follow the individual links for each photo, or you can easily find all of these photos and more in my Colour Inspiration Tuesday collection.
Until next time…..
Don’t forget to head over to Stitched in Color for your chance to win a set of 9 Toasty Teal fat quarters.
Also, stay tuned for my Christmas Bells tutorial coming this week. See you again soon!
P.S. Here are two more fun things I think you should know……
Secondly, Joy at “Days Filled with Joy” is running a short series of 12 Days of Last Minute Christmas Gift ideas. Head on over to see what you can make for the people on your Christmas list. Or if you have a suitable tutorial, let her know ASAP, as she is currently looking for projects to feature. You’ll like Joy, I promise!
If you would like to keep in touch with Clever Chameleon and the fun quilty ideas I 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!
Colour Inspiration Tuesday: Colour Spring-Boards for your Quilt, Craft and Decor Ideas
Over the closed winter period, our local outdoor public pool has redecorated. Just a paint job mostly, but I like it. The colours chosen are fresh, fun and summery – like an outdoor pool should be. There are also a few extra shade sails and some new furniture. Not extravagant, but useful and happy. 🙂
I like the new colours. Specifically, I like them in this space. They work very well here and add nicely to the atmosphere. I wouldn’t like them in my home, with the possible exception of a child’s bedroom. I probably wouldn’t like them in a work office either. But they are appropriate for a recreational space like the pool.
Colour Inspiration Tuesday: Poolside Fun colour scheme
Wouldn’t these colours make a great picnic quilt? Something that makes you want to take it to the beach or the park or the pool. A quilt that reminds you that outings are fun (once you get there!! 🙂 ) and says “Let’s go!!”.
Here’s my quick diagram of an idea that came to mind:
This wouldn’t be difficult to make. Just a bit time consuming on the icy-poles.
Do you have a picnic quilt? Did you make it yourself? Tell me, have you water-proofed it in anyway? I am wondering if there is something better for the underside of picnic quilts than quilting weight cotton? Or an internal layer that will make it more serviceable and less prone to collecting prickles and transferring dampness from the ground? Recycled denim perhaps? Or recycled rubber-backed curtains? If you have relevant experience to share, I’d love to know. 🙂