In July I started a tumbling blocks quilt in solids. This is a little unusual for me. I tend to work in batiks, but I was unsure whether I would take to sewing Y-seams or not. And I had a particular plan to recreate a quilt idea that had occurred to me during a Colour Inspiration Tuesday. So I stocked up on some relatively cheap solid fabrics and cut a stack of diamonds with my AccuQuilt GO! cutter.
Tumbling Blocks Quilt stalled as other things hit the priority queue. Time to finish this off!
I got it mostly sewn, and two tutorials on the process written (about Y-seams and about tumbling blocks quilt construction) before life interfered and things stalled on this project. Now it’s time to get it done.
My goal broken down:
I have all the tumbling block quilt units I need, I just have to finish sewing them together.
Then I need to buy fabric for the borders and the backing, and get the quilt top finished.
Finally, I will layer up and pin the quilt sandwich and stabilise it with stitch in the ditch quilting.
That is where my goal ends. However, I reserve the right to completely finish the quilting on this one, but it is not part of my official goal this month! We have to be realistic! 🙂
Do you have a quilt goal for September? If you do, share it with us here in the comments below. And consider joining us at Elm Street Quilts for some accountability (and be in the running for a prize as well!).
I hope you will share what you would like your September 2017 chapter of your Quilt Story to be!
P.S. Also linking up with Main Crush Monday at Cooking up Quilts and Free-motion by the River. Come on over and find out what other people are working on this week.
Colour Inspiration Tuesday – explore with me the endless possibilities of colour for our quilts!
Welcome back to Tuesday! We made it! This past weekend we had a family celebration with my father turning 70, so blogging has had a backseat for a few days. But here we are, on the right day, and more or less on time! Yay!
Colour Inspiration Tuesday: Dancing Macaw
About the time I started the Clever Chameleon blog, I also started experimenting with free-motion appliqué. Free-motion appliqué was the homework of my very first Sweet Sixteen monthly meeting. During this time I drew up a number of critters I thought I would like to turn into appliqué designs. One of these fellows was this guy – a cheeky version of a dancing macaw. Macaws are magnificently beautiful, don’t you think?!
Dancing Macaw appliqué design in progress.
Needless to say though, learning to blog has been even more intensive than I expected, and I haven’t yet got back to developing many of the designs into patterns. (Some owls are an exception, more on that another day soon! And I did do a pelican quilt – do you remember him?). Anyway, when I found a photo of a blue and gold macaw on Unsplash.com, I knew I had to do a “Dancing Macaw” colour board.
The “Dancing Macaw” colour scheme is gold and blue. It is a beautiful example of blue and orange-yellow together. You’ll be hard pressed to go wrong with these colours on a quilt because they are complementary and therefore very eye-catching.
The only downside is that the macaw photo doesn’t really capture all the colours that I want to use for my macaw appliqué. So I went back to Unsplash.com and found another photo that makes pulling out the colours I want easier. So, without further ado, here is today’s second colour board: Summer Foliage.
The Summer Foliage colour scheme is blue, gold and green. Between these two new colour boards, I believe I will have no trouble at all putting together a collection of fabrics to appliqué my dancing macaw. What would you use these colours for?! Let us know in the comments below.
Maybe blue and orange is not your favourite complementary colour scheme….
Today’s photos in Dancing Macaw hues are from Unsplash.com. Unsplash is a collection of free, high resolution, “do what you want with” photos. Credit is not required, but I’m sure you’d love to know who is being so generous with their talent. Accordingly, the macaw photo was provided by Andrew Pons and the foliage photograph was taken by Jakob Owens. Be sure to check out their collections of photos on Unsplash.
P.S. If you would like to use Andrew’s or Jakob’s photos or another Colour Inspiration Tuesday photo for your own projects, you can easily find all the Unsplash photos from Colour Inspiration Tuesday in one place for free in my Colour Inspiration Collection.
Our weekly update and a chat about why I am considering quilting more fabric panels….
But first….. what have you been working on this week? Something fun, I hope!
We’ve had a busy few days at Gardner-Stephen HQ, with it being submissions week for exhibits at the Royal Adelaide Show and also Book Week for the children. Book Week involves a school parade where each child dresses up as a favourite book character. The emphasis is on trying to be involved in making your own costume rather than just buying one. Lots of fun but a little labour intensive.
Crochet Christmas Stocking
This year, Miss 9 decided to have her first go at entering an exhibit in the Royal Show. (I think I can safely talk about this in public now, as judging will have already taken place.) Anyway, Miss 9 learned to crochet while we were living in Germany last year, and recently decided to design her own Christmas stocking to enter in the 8-10 year olds home economics class at The Show. She did a great job, don’t you think? She is anxiously waiting a verdict, asking me to check the online results every day! I have tried to encourage her to just be proud of entering. But she is very definitely hoping for a ribbon. Fingers crossed for her.
This week’s quilting adventures
So, as you can see, plenty of creativity going on around here this week. But not a lot of quilting. I have been working on stabilising two more charity quilts, ready for some free-motion quilting to make them a bit more special and unique.
Charity Quilt 1
The first one is a happy child’s quilt covered in big squares of bright colours. Some of the fabrics feature bugs, flowers or birds. Deciding what to quilt on this is easy for a change!!! I know, shock, horror!! Last year I did two quilts covered with flowers, suns, butterflies, dragonflies, leaves and snails. One of them was the quilt I did for my nephew featured in the Digging for Pineapples post last week. I will be dusting off those skills to quilt the same critters on this one.
Child’s quilt all stabilised and ready for FMQAren’t the prints cute on this?!!Here’s one of the little critter designs I’m going to be using. I’ll tell you more when it happens.
Charity Quilt 2
The second quilt is an adult quilt in red and brown. It is the same pattern as the quilt I quilted with the daisy FMQ motif. It is less feminine than that quilt, but it is still not a bloke’s quilt. The prints include lace, roses and butterflies, and the back is a dusky pink. I am still thinking through what to quilt on this one. Another repeated block pattern…. perhaps something similar to one of the orange peel-derived patterns from ipatchandquilt? Or butterflies?
The latest adult charity quilt in my queue.There is just enough blue-green in this colour combination to make it interesting. I quite like it, even though red isn’t close to the top of my favourite colours.
I am leaning towards a stylised flower design to match the geometric and graphic feel of the quilt. Something like this…..
Stylised Flower FMQ design, similar to an ipatchandquilt motif.
What do you think? I am hoping it will tie together the large scale leaf print and the lacy print. And then I can fall back to the leaf vine in the sashing that I did last time, which is quick and easy. And simple piano keys for the border to echo the piecing design.
There you go! I had more quilt news than I thought. To tie up for the week, let’s finish off with those promised thoughts on using fabric panels for quilting practice.
An expansion on my thoughts around fabric panels
Last post, I wrote about a little baby quilt that I did some free-motion quilting on. It was made from one of those fabric panels that you see in the quilt store, that I had simply written off as “those things people buy if they need to make a quilt and have no real interest in making a quilt”.
But it quilted up so nicely. And it gave me a good opportunity to challenge my thoughts about the value of fabric panels to mad-keen, more experienced quilters. I was definitely pleased enough with the experience to consider using them more often, and here’s why….
Speed
The one obvious thing in favour of using printed fabric panels is how fast you can put together a quilt. Need a baby or toddler quilt in a hurry? A pre-printed panel could be your answer.
Cost
With no cutting, no seams and no left-over fabrics there is very little wastage in a panel quilt. You only pay for the exact amount of fabric you need to cover the surface area of your quilt. Where I live, at least, the cost of printed fabric panels per metre the same as other fabrics, so panels will always work out cheaper than the equivalent patchwork. If you need a bigger quilt than the printed panel, it is a simple task to add a quick border or two.
FMQ beginner friendly
When you are starting out learning to free-motion quilt, one of the differences you will find between your practice pieces and a real quilt is when quilting over the seams. If your patchwork is especially fancy, there can be some pretty bulky seams lurking in your quilt sandwich! These can break your rhythm and make it hard to keep the quilt moving evenly and steadily. Panels have no seams, and therefore allow you to practice quilting on a real quilt and build your confidence before having to tackling quilting over any unpredictable thicknesses.
Another difference I find between my practice pieces and my real quilts is the “stress”. On my practice pieces I am not worried about messing up, so therefore I relax and quilt better. On a quilt that has taken weeks or months to piece, I find it hard to relax, even though it results in better quilting. I found that a fabric panel was more like a practice piece because it doesn’t represent a huge emotional, financial and time investment in its creation prior to quilting. So I relax more, enjoy the quilting and produce a better result.
Accuracy practice
Printed fabric panels are excellent for practising your quilting accuracy. The teddy bear quilt I quilted last week had motifs that I could quilt on or around without having to go to the trouble of marking anything. This is great practice for building muscle memory for free-motion quilting and also awareness of where your needle is. I don’t know about you, but when I first started learning FMQ, my ability to trace a design with the machine was appalling. I would never have been game to try to free-motion stitch in the ditch for example.
Here is a panel my mother gave me many many years ago, before I started quilting. I haven’t touched it because my mother died and I was scared of ruining it. But I know now that I can do an adequate job on it, and one day soon I will lay it out and quilt it. This sort of panel is a great example of one that would be perfect for tracing practice….. just quilt around all those printed pieces as if they were actually pieced and appliquéd!
If you have a printed fabric that is tricky to trace, you can also improve your skills by quilting near the design. Here is an example from early in my FMQ experience, where I just approximated the printed shapes on a bed sheet. Did my toddler analyse my FMQ skills? Absolutely not!!
Quilt around printed shapes for steering practice
Good for practicing your FMQ design/decision skills
One skill that quilters often need to practice is the decision making process of what quilting to put where. It’s great to ask around and get opinions and ideas, but in the end, it’s you that has to make the final decision. Quilting fabric panels separates this decision process from any distractions that piecing can cause…. like whether the piecing is inaccurate and hard to quilt, or too perfect and is making you nervous to touch the jolly thing! Quilting a few different panels with different themes and motifs is a good way to expand your repertoire. Perhaps knock up a few for a local charity even??
A more useful product
If you want your quilts to be used (I generally do!), fabric panels are your best friend. Commercial printing and no/few seams results in a quilt that can be thrown in the wash and dryer without fear of bleeding and falling apart. Being more robust and “less precious” than an intricately pieced quilt means that a new mum can be more relaxed about using the quilt. Speaking as someone who has been there….. I was given secondhand baby panel quilt that I used for all sorts of things because it wasn’t deemed “precious”. When it was dirty it went in the wash with everything else. When we didn’t need it anymore I handed it to the next person, knowing that it was a great asset. In contrast, the baby quilt my mum made before she died is still in the cupboard….. it has a different kind of worth.
Lesser risk of “Quilter’s Remorse”
Sadly, quilter’s remorse is a real thing. If you have been hanging around quilting groups for any length of time, you probably know at least one person who has gifted an amazing, expensive and laborious quilt to someone, only to be horrified and scarred at the lack of gratitude received. So give your pieced quilts wisely or let them go emotionally when you gift them.
Either way, don’t expect children or young mums to understand or be enthralled with your hours of labour. Many non-quilters simply do not understand the effort – they are not usually trying to be ungrateful. And children live in the now. They love quilts with their favourite characters/animal on. Be awesome and quilt what they like, not your own preferences.
Children also grow up fast and want bigger quilts with the latest character on. So unless you want your quilt to be passed down through the generations, perhaps a series of quick quilts that evolve with the child is better. They will get just as sentimentally attached to a well chosen fabric panel quilt as any other! And likely love them more intensely, even if for a shorter time.
Use your creative time and budget wisely. For “that baby shower gift for a friend of a friend”, a fabric panel quilt is probably a good option!
One word of caution
I mentioned that there is one reason why I don’t like printed fabric panels. And it is this. They can be hard to square up. I found this out when I made baby books for my son, and again when I made a quilt for my mother-in-law. Printed panels often don’t give you a lot of leeway for trimming to square. So be aware of this from the beginning. Block your fabric to square BEFORE you add any piecing or layer up your sandwich, or you may be facing some very awkward decisions between having a wonky quilt and trimming off some of the design in a non-symmetrical manner. Neither will give you much satisfaction.
I hope you have enjoyed our little discussion about fabric panels. Let us know your thoughts on using them…. do you use them? Why or why not?
Colour Inspiration Tuesday(ish): It’s all about colouring our quilts, our way!
Welcome back to Colour Inspiration Tuesday! I know…. it’s Wednesday…. but this week we are having a Colour Inspiration “Tuesday” blitz. Because I have had too much fun designing colour schemes and matching them to fabrics, thanks to Stitched in Color and Quilt Sandwich Fabrics.
And besides, it’s still winter here, so a healthy dose of summer colours all week will not be a bad thing. So buckle up and enjoy the colour ride. Next week we will be back to normal. Maybe.
Today I have chosen a picture of a pineapple on the beach from Unsplash.com. Why are there so many pictures of pineapples on beaches? I don’t know. It’s quite incongruous if you stop to think about it, yet we still think summer/tropical holidays when we see them. I have a reason for choosing this photo though. I’ll tell you in a moment.
Today’s colour palette is called “Digging for Pineapples”.
Colour Inspiration Tuesday: Digging for Pineapples
The “Digging for Pineapples” colour scheme is yellow, orange, blue, green, aqua, teal and tan. These are fresh tropical summery colours, with a lighter feel than yesterday’s calorie laden colour palette, Ice-cream Tones. You can use lots of white with these colours to preserve the summer freshness. But they work equally well as a solid block of saturated colour for feasting your eyes on.
For example, here is the back of a quilt I made for my nephew a while back. I made it from a layer cake of 10″ squares of batik fabrics from Timeless Treasures Tonga Treats. The colours are just wonderful.
The back of my nephew’s quilt in “Digging for Pineapples” colours.Child’s quilt backing made from 10″ squaresOf course. I am never allowed to photograph a quilt without my quilting helper
One of the prints in this series even looks a bit like pieces of pineapple!
But I digress a little. This week we are looking at fabrics that are available now from Quilt Sandwich Fabrics’ Etsy store.
I made several mosaics from fabrics that I think capture the mood and colours of Digging for Pineapples. I won’t be adding any to the mosaic contest because there are already several mosaics that are similar to these up there and I have more ideas to try out yet…… but these combinations are lovely, and there is nothing stopping you popping over to Quilt Sandwich Fabrics and grabbing yourself pieces from these curated collections.
Digging for Pineapples mosaic 1Digging for Pineapples mosaic 2
Why I would love to make a Digging for Pineapples Quilt one day….
I told you there was a reason for choosing the pineapple on the beach photo. So here it is. It is a sentimental story from my family history, and has likely become better over the years with telling. I know it to go something like this.
Many years ago, when my dad was young, his family went to the beach for the day. His mother took with them a tin of pineapple for the family to share for dessert. Thinking it would be nicer cold, she buried it in the wet sand to cool down. She marked the burial site with a stick and went back to enjoying the outing with her family.
However, when it came time to eat, of course the tide had come in and washed the stick away. Unperturbed, my grandmother thought she knew where the tin was buried , so she grabbed a spade and started enthusiastically digging in the sand. But to no avail. After a while, a gentleman who had been watching her, approached my grandmother and politely inquired why she was digging. She simply replied “I am digging for pineapple”. Apparently the gentlemen just gave her a look that he probably hoped was understanding and politely went on his way. Well, what could he say?!!
Of course, the pineapple was never found, at least not by my family. But the hilarity of the moment has lasted decades, and it was a story my grandmother told me several times. She has since passed away at the ripe old age of 99, and one day I would love to make a memory quilt of “Digging for Pineapples”.
What my Digging for Pineapples Quilt would be like
A Digging for Pineapples quilt would be a precious addition to my quilting story. I am thinking scrappy flying geese on white. The triangles can represent the spikes on pineapples and the act of digging. Of course, there would be 99 triangles. I think my grandmother would have liked the idea.
Summer Crush Mosaic Colour Inspiration Week
If you want to follow my thoughts around the Summer Crush mosaic contest for the rest of the week, I will be adding the links here.
On Tuesday we looked at the colours of Ice-cream Tones. Pinks and yellows, with a little brown and blue added for interest.
On Thursday we explored the light happiness of hot pinks and aqua in a colour scheme called Flamingoes in the Pool.
Today’s photo of the pineapple on the beach is from Unsplash.com. Unsplash is a collection of free, high resolution, “do what you want with” photos. Credit is not required to use the photos, but I love to give credit where credit is due, and am always grateful to people who contribute to open source communities. So I would like you to know that this lovely photo was provided by Evi Radauscher via Unsplash. Be sure to check out her collection of photos on Unsplash.com. Evi Radauscher
For colour inspiration for your quilts in your inbox weekly follow along by subscribing to this blog. Or follow Clever Chameleon Quilt Colour Inspiration on Pinterest and pin your favourite colour palettes to try later.
P.S. If you would like to use Evi’s photo or another Colour Inspiration Tuesday photo for your own projects, you can easily find all the Unsplash photos from Colour Inspiration Tuesday in one place for free in my Colour Inspiration Collection.
Colour Inspiration Tuesday: Helping you find amazing colours for your next quilt.
Welcome back to Colour Inspiration Tuesday! And an extra warm welcome to you if you have arrived here via the Stitched in Color blog and have joined us at Clever Chameleon for the first time. Here we explore colours with patchwork and quilting specifically in mind, although the colours also work for any other creative project you might be planning of course. This week we are going to have a bumper week. Today we will explore ice-cream tones, later in the week I am planning to investigate the colours of buried pineapples, cocktails at dusk and flamingoes in the swimming pool! Intrigued? I hope so!
Not too long ago I discovered the absolutely beautiful Stitched in Color blog. It resonated with me immediately, especially the colour mosaics you can find here. Rachel writes: “Slow down a minute, my friend, and ponder with me in color.” What a wonderful sentiment. Ever since discovering her page, I have been waiting for a chance to join in the mosaic fun.
One of the reasons why I am so keen to link in with the mosaic contests is because it takes what we do here at Clever Chameleon – choosing a photo, generating colour schemes (or mood boards), and thinking about their uses in a quilt – and moves it into the world of real fabrics. A bit like I did with Jewel Tone Triangles a while back. Today, the fabrics in question are the pretties of the luscious Quilt Sandwich Fabrics shop on Etsy. It makes us work within the confines of what is available today, from one source. This is a helpful skill to practice!
Colour Inspiration Tuesday: Ice-cream Tones
So, back to the matter at hand. Like every other colour palette so far, I have started with an interesting photo from Unsplash.com. This week I focussed on summer-themed photos, and came up with a small short-list of candidates (the contest allows two uploads per participant). To kick us off, we are going to look at ice-cream. Not many things yell summer louder than ice-cream, right?!
The “Ice-cream Tones” colour scheme is yellow, pink and brown. It evokes thoughts of hot days, cold treats and berry flavours. I emphasised the darker pink in my mood board because my favourite summer treat is a frozen yoghurt from the Copenhagen Ice-creamery, which has a dark berry puree swirled through! Delicious!
I would recommend using the dark brown colour as a contrast highlight. Just enough to make the yellows and pinks really shine. I would also add a lot of white to a quilt in these colours, to preserve the clean, light brightness of summer days.
What to create with the Ice-cream Tones colour palette?
Lately, at this point in each post, I have been adding a visual quilt idea or two for you, based around the colours in the day’s colour palette. But that’s where this week is different. Today we will be matching fabrics to our colour palette instead. You can do this with any colour palette and your favourite online fabric store, anytime. Great, isn’t it?!
Firstly, I went through the fabrics on offer at Quilt Sandwich Fabrics, the contest’s sponsors. Here are the fabrics that I initially pulled out.
My first pass at selecting Ice-cream Tones fabrics from Quilt Sandwich Fabrics
Now, the rules of this contest say I have to narrow the selection down to just 9. Which nine would I most like to make a quilt with?!
Here is my process…..
How I chose nine fabrics for an Ice-cream Tones project
My eye was caught by this fabric first – Direction in Yellow, an arrow print on a yellow background, from the Tropical Paradise collection by Josephine Kimberling for Blend Fabrics.
Not only did it capture the colours of the Ice-cream tones palettes, but it also introduced purples for deep summer sunsets, and aquas and blues from the beach and the sky. All things that very much make up summer here in coastal Australia.
To make sure the aqua, blue and purple sit well in my collection I added 2 more prints that use these colours. The bike sign print (From the Ride collection designed by Julia Rothman) was a seriously good find! My hubby and I and the kids cycle a lot, all year round, but especially in summer. And then the feathers (From the Tsuru collection by Rashida Coleman-Hale for Cloud 9 Fabric). I added this fabric because I love it, and because no summer walk around our local wetlands is complete without collecting feathers.
The next step was to make sure there is enough dark contrast and larger scale print in my collection. So I added the pink daisies on the brown background (Daisies and stems in lilac, magenta, olive and lime on a brown background. Designed by Tula Pink for the Acacia collection by Free Spirit Fabrics). Daisies are definitely very summer.
I then went back to my colour scheme and emphasised the main colours with small scale print fabrics. Two pinks and two yellows of different colour values. To finish the collection I added a medium scale medallion print that has both pink and yellows as its main colours. It was designed by Keri Beyer for the Dream A Little Dream With Me collection by In The Beginning Fabrics. The circles remind me of the summer sun, but dreams also seem appropriate for summer.
This is what I ended up with. I hope you like it.
This is my final selection of fabrics for my Summer Crush Mosaic: Ice-cream and Sunshine
What about the backing?
Well it’s not part of the contest, but I saw this little gem along the way. And I can say I would love to have this on the back. It is just too cute!!! And all the right colours too. It is covered in bright houses with a happy attitude and is from Timeless Treasures.
Back to some quick Colour Inspiration Tuesday formalities….
Some information if you are new here today…..
Recently I put together our first colour scheme review. For a good introduction to Colour Inspiration Tuesday, you can find 12 colour palettes all together here.
Last week we looked at classic blues and greens in the Another World Blue colour palette. We also explored what the Cat on a Wall quilt pattern would look like if we used these colours instead of the Sunset Wall palette.
Follow the links to find out what we’ve been up to. And subscribe to emails to keep up to speed from now on!
Credit
Today’s photo of yummy ice-cream is from Unsplash.com. Unsplash is a collection of free, high resolution, “do what you want with” photos. Credit is not required, but I love to give credit where credit is due, and am always grateful to people who contribute to open source communities. So I would like you to know that this lovely photo was provided by Ian Dooley via Unsplash. Be sure to check out his collection of photos on Unsplash.com. ian dooley
For colour inspiration for your quilts in your inbox weekly follow along by subscribing to this blog. Or follow Clever Chameleon Quilt Colour Inspiration on Pinterest and pin your favourite colour palettes to try later.
P.S. If you would like to use Ian’s photo or another Colour Inspiration Tuesday photo for your own projects, you can easily find all the Unsplash photos from Colour Inspiration Tuesday in one place for free in my Colour Inspiration Collection.
. This is a little unusual for me. I tend to work in batiks, but I was unsure whether I would take to sewing Y-seams or not. And I had a particular plan to recreate a quilt idea that had occurred to me during a Colour Inspiration Tuesday. So I stocked up on some relatively cheap solid fabrics and cut a stack of diamonds with my AccuQuilt GO! cutter. 
I got it mostly sewn, and two tutorials on the process written (about Y-seams and about tumbling blocks quilt construction) before life interfered and things stalled on this project. Now it’s time to get it done.
Or you could check out the fun series we had recently – looking at matching colour boards to fabrics to express a variety of summer themes. 
For more colour inspiration for your quilts, follow along by subscribing to this blog by email (on the sidebar).
Our weekly update and a chat about why I am considering quilting more fabric panels….
Here is a panel my mother gave me many many years ago, before I started quilting. I haven’t touched it because my mother died and I was scared of ruining it. But I know now that I can do an adequate job on it, and one day soon I will lay it out and quilt it. This sort of panel is a great example of one that would be perfect for tracing practice….. just quilt around all those printed pieces as if they were actually pieced and appliquéd!
On Thursday we explored the light happiness of hot pinks and aqua in a colour scheme called 
To make sure the aqua, blue and purple sit well in my collection I added 2 more prints that use these colours. The bike sign print (From the Ride collection designed by Julia Rothman) was a seriously good find! My hubby and I and the kids cycle a lot, all year round, but especially in summer. And then the feathers (From the Tsuru collection by Rashida Coleman-Hale for Cloud 9 Fabric). I added this fabric because I love it, and because no summer walk around our local wetlands is complete without collecting feathers.
I then went back to my colour scheme and emphasised the main colours with small scale print fabrics. Two pinks and two yellows of different colour values. To finish the collection I added a medium scale medallion print that has both pink and yellows as its main colours. It was designed by Keri Beyer for the Dream A Little Dream With Me collection by In The Beginning Fabrics. The circles remind me of the summer sun, but dreams also seem appropriate for summer.
Last week we looked at classic blues and greens in the 
For colour inspiration for your quilts in your inbox weekly follow along by subscribing to this blog. Or follow