Aghhh. Slow internet! No internet! Slow internet! Great Intern….. Nope, dropped out again! That is the reality here the last 36 hours. Writing what I can offline… and then madly uploading if I see signal. So, I apologise for all the typos, comments ending up in the wrong place and other weird stuff…… I think I have only embarrassed myself once so far :(. It’ll be a while before I take good internet at a sane time of day for granted again!
Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday: Day 4
Tsunami escape route sign
The overwhelmed, under-spec and oh-so-vulnerable communications network here is the reason why our family is currently in Vanuatu. Hubby, Paul, is developing a cheap, easy to deploy, phone-based technology that will allow villages to maintain their own intra-village text-message services independently of cellular networks. We even hope to connect two neighbouring villages. We are aiming for a system that can provide rudimentary communications when the cellular network is down and where it doesn’t reach. Which is too often and in too many places. Vanuatu tops the natural disaster at risk list for the entire world – being vulnerable to earthquake, hurricane, volcano, and tsunami, with low capacity to prepare and rebuild.
Inspired by the Pandanus Fruit
Unripe fruit on a Pandanus plant in Vanuatu
Yesterday and today we travelled out of Port Vila again to the two small villages where we are doing a pilot study of Paul’s telecommunications system. One of the very noticeable plants along the roadside out of Port Vila are the Pandanus trees, with their big green fruits the size of rockmelons (cantaloupe). Currently the fruits are unripe – they will turn a robust orange when they are edible. I have been told locally that they are good for pregnant women, although I didn’t find out why.
Anyway, it is solely the visual texture of these fruits that has aroused my interest today. I haven’t actually been able to touch one – they are too high up.
How was I inspired by the Pandanus Fruit?
Because the Pandanus Fruit has interesting shapes and textures, I was inspired to try an abstract representation that I could piece and appliqué. Here is my Pandanus Fruit-inspired art quilt design:
Abstract pandanus quilt design
I used the colours I can see in my photo. I think the large background space would be good for some FMQ practice. Maybe try out some Vanuatu themed motifs.
Hope to see you again tomorrow!
P.S. If you missed the beginning of my 31 Days of Everyday Quilt Inspiration, you can find it here.
P.P.S. While I have internet, here is a picture of the telecommunications boxes we are installing and testing.
See the white box with the three antennas on the pole? That is the technology we are testing, installed on the roof of a house in Vanuatu.
Colour Inspiration Tuesday – Weekly Inspiration and Colour Happiness for your Quilting Mental Fitness!
Hi! Welcome back to Tuesday! Doesn’t it roll around quickly!? Today we are going to exercise the little grey cells and treat them to some beautiful colours along the way.
Mental exercise is good for your mind. Luckily for us, mental exercise can be waaaaay more fun than the physical sort! Keeping your mind active can be as fun as learning a new sewing technique. Resizing a quilt pattern. Or exploring new colour combinations. Anything that takes you out of your mental comfort zone and requires you to do some actual thinking rather than just consuming information or watching TV.
This week I have been stretching my mind by learning new techniques (playing with trapunto), and thinking about what to explore next for Colour Inspiration Tuesday. I finally settled on some strawberry flowers. These flowers remind me of the time when I was a country teen and had a huge patch of strawberry plants that I grew from a few runners my maternal grandmother gave me. I used to water them, mulch them and even feed them with cow dung that I collected and pre-soaked in buckets of water! And the little fruits were ohhhhh soooo sweet. Accessing happy memories is good for your mental health too!
Colour Inspiration Tuesday – Strawberry Vines
In honour of happy memories and mental exercise, today we have the “Strawberry Vines” colour scheme and an accompanying free-motion quilting motif to try. “Strawberry Vines” is a green, yellow and pale grey-blue colour palette. The blue is so subtle it looks white unless there is real white up against it. Go on, have another look at the photo. The main colour captured on the strawberry flower is not really pure white is it?
Anyway, I decided against designing us another quilt idea this week. The truth is that there are many good ideas floating around in Colour Inspiration Tuesday already. And I would like to have an honest go at some of them. Without the weight of new ideas to cause drag or distraction. But I did want to still give you something…… I am ever so grateful to you my readers and especially to my growing list of regular followers for coming by.
So, this week’s idea for personalising your quilts is….
Looking at the strawberry flower picture and remembering my garden with the hundreds of plants and gently tending the runners until the new plants had roots and planting them too, made me think of quilting strawberries, strawberry leaves and flowers on a continuous line. Strawberry Vines. Wouldn’t this be a lovely finishing touch for a quilt in summer colours or pastel tones? Or on reds, pinks and greens on a girl’s quilt? Do you remember the Strawberry Shortcake character from the 1980’s? A quilt in her colours!
Strawberry Shortcake…. 35 years old(ish) and still scented! This little darling now belongs to my daughter.
Strawberry Vines Quilting Motif
So I started doodling on paper and came up with my first go at such a design. Followed by a quick experiment on a fat quarter left over from Jewel Tone Diamonds and some waste cotton batting.
The three elements I used were leaf triplet, a small flower with the characteristic star in the centre between the petals, and of course, strawberries. As you can see, I tried the strawberries with and without seeds.
Strawberry Vines quilting motif
One of the things I like about my new impromptu design is that any gaps that get missed or are too hard to fill in with continuous quilting can be filled in with a curly “strawberry runner”. How good is that?!?
On my next try, I think I will round out the leaves a bit more. I know that strawberry leaves also have zigzagged edges, but that level of detail doesn’t interest me for quilting. The flowers were a bit tricky, I went through several methods to try to quilt them neatly. Here is the path that worked best for me. Start by travelling into the flower centre, and add the petals second:
A strawberry flower quilting path. Note, I have added gaps where lines would normally touch or overlay each other, so that you can easily see the pathway.
Don’t worry if you need to place more than 5 petals around the centre to finish the flower. Strawberry flowers can have 5, 6 or 7 petals. It’s the flat shape of the petals with the triangle gaps between them that make them so distinctive.
The other important thing to remember is to round off the tops of your strawberries where they meet the leaves. And don’t make the berries too symmetrical…. otherwise they look like acorns with the wrong caps instead. Or maybe persimmons. At least to me.
Next time I play with this motif I want to add flower buds as well. I have a UFO in colours not unlike “Lily Pad Glow” that might look nice quilted with this motif. What would you use it on?
Don’t need strawberry vines quilting motifs this week?
“Strawberries! How dull. Wake me up when you are quilting something interesting… like flies! Flies are cool!”
Today’s photo of strawberry flowers is 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, this photo was provided by John-Mark Kuznietsov. Be sure to check out his collection of photos on Unsplash. John-Mark Kuznietsov
I hope you have fun trying out this strawberry vines quilting motif. See you next time for more quilting fun!
P.S. If you would like to use John-Mark’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.
You are invited too. Come and see what lots of craft-loving people are sharing on the net this week!! Here’s one of my favourites from the parties so far: Project Sew a Jellyroll by Patchwork Sampler
If you have been following for a little while, you may remember that I have been attending monthly local Handiquilter group meetings at the Adelaide Sewing Centre. I really like these meetings because they expose me to different techniques and give me a semi-hard-deadline to try them before the next meeting. This past two months we have been looking at trapunto.
The meeting before last, Heather talked about trapunto in general. Then last month she upped the ante by talking about shadow trapunto. This is fantastic, because I first discovered shadow trapunto on the internet years ago, and put it on my to-do list. Where it sadly stayed ever since. Until now.
I was pretty pleased that the next month or two’s worth of homework is something I have always wanted to try. But of course, time slips away and the next meeting is looming very large, so today and yesterday I have been madly going trapunto! 🙂
Researching my Trapunto Homework
A few months ago, I also discovered an amazing quilting blog by Geta Grama. If you are not familiar with this blog, you are definitely missing out. I highly recommend that you check it out (Hey, not just yet! – when you are finished here!! ;)).
What’s more, I discovered Geta Grama about the same time Heather announced that we were going to be looking at trapunto for the next few months. And, guess what Geta does a lot of? That’s right! Trapunto! So ever since, I have had one of Geta’s tutorials earmarked. Now I am having a crack at it, and here’s how it went….
After downloading Geta’s “Dream Big” file, I printed the pdf (4 pages) and stuck them together…. this went without a hitch. Now, here’s where I started to deviate from the script. I don’t currently own a working wash-out marking pen, and they make me nervous anyway. So, I traced the lettering onto greaseproof paper and layered this over white cotton quilting fabric and 200gsm (30mm) polyester wadding. I immediately wished I had opted for the thinner polyester batting, as the fat wadding didn’t fit very well under my sewing machine foot. It probably wouldn’t have been such an issue if I had just marked the fabric rather than trying to use baking paper, so perhaps I shall have to remember to buy a washout pen next time I am shopping.
Anyway, with a little care, I managed to sew around the lettering without losing the baking paper. I used soluble thread on the top and ordinary bobbin thread underneath.
“Dream Big” sewn onto fabric and polyester batting“Dream Big” sewn into polyester batting (from the back)
Then came the bit that has always put me off trapunto. The cutting away of the excess polyester batting. I hate the thought of nicking the top fabric or the stitching holding it all together. Just to cut out this little project took me an hour, and I did accidentally cut the stitching once. It promptly started coming undone quite badly, so I re-sewed the loose part straight away. Thankfully I didn’t nick the top fabric at any point. At this point I was pretty sure that trapunto is not for me. Too stressful for a hobby!!!
“Dream Big” trapunto cut away from excess batting.
I will note here that I should have read Geta’s tutorial more thoroughly before I started. She says starching your fabric really stiff helps keep the fabric from getting accidentally snipped. I’ll have to try that next time. If there is a next time….. see, I am warming to the idea.
Putting the Quilt Together
Once I had the trapunto prepared, I layered it over another two layers of bamboo/cotton blend batting (that’s what I had at hand) and put white fabric on the back. I used two layers because I read on Karen’s quilt blog that this will give you better quilting definition and more texture. I wanted to give this a go, and there’s nothing like killing two birds with one stone.
Then I traced the innermost heart shape onto more greaseproof paper and positioned it over the quilt sandwich using the lettering as a guide to placement. I stitched the outline of the heart in white thread and removed the paper.
Marking the boundary of the innermost heart with stitching.
Then I filled in the heart around the lettering with micro stippling and finished off the letters and heart outlines by going around them twice. I used variegated Wonderfill cotton thread for the micro stippling and Robison-Anton rayon for the outlines. The Robison-Anton shreds too easily in my Sweet 16, although I never had any problems with it in my domestic machine. I personally prefer Madeira rayon in my Sweet 16. However, the colour was the decider from the threads I had on hand, so I just persisted through the inevitable broken thread episodes.
Micro-stippling allows the trapunto to really pop out.
Quilting the background
The original pattern from Geta Grama was finished off with some simple echo quilting. But never one to stick to a pattern, I had to mess with it. Besides, I am always looking for ways to increase my quilting practice without increasing my number of projects. So, I drew up a slightly altered echo quilting plan and filled in the first concentric heart with half feathers. By this stage I was having fun. There will probably be a next time after all.
“Dream Big” trapunto with echo quilting.
Then I decided to complete the feathers rather than repeating the half feathers and alternate the feathers with other designs. I started with pebbles, but my bobbin ran out. Which was fortuitous because I decided I didn’t like the pebbles after all and ripped them out.
Here are the pebbles I started before ripping them out.
In the end, I decided to fill in the gaps between the feathers with micro-stippling. It seemed better to keep the number of design elements to a minimum.
Micro-stippling combined with feathers between the echo quilting.
Finally I decided that I liked the extra white space left at this point, so I actually didn’t fill in the last few sections with dense quilting. So the project finally ended up looking like this:
Well, what a few weeks of Colour Inspired Tuesdays it’s been! We’ve had another quilt design, a series of matching fabric to colours in photos, and the beginnings of a cheeky parrot appliqué.
And, if that wasn’t enough, I have some extra news! Now we’ve been invited to participate in an art-inspired quilt blog hop. What fun!! Alida at Tweety Loves Quilting blog is holding the fourth Art with Fabric blog hop, starting 9th October. Five days of artworks re-interpreted as quilted items. And Clever Chameleon will feature on Friday the 13th! Lucky for some! Head on over and have a pre-view of the line up.
The second Colour Inspiration Tuesday Collection
To access the colour palettes of the second Colour Inspiration Tuesday collection, click on the thumbnails below.
Follow along and be the first with the free inspiration!
At Clever Chameleon we explore at least one potential quilt colour scheme every week. I also share my own creations and tutorials regularly. Follow Clever Chameleon Quilting on Bloglovin’ to stay abreast of all the fun quilty things I do and find on the internet. Or subscribe to receive regular Clever Chameleon emails that will Colour Your Mood and Brighten Your World.
Colour Inspiration Tuesday is also easily accessible through Pinterest. Follow my Understanding Color for Quilts board for regular quilt colour inspiration.
P.S. If you are an art quilter (or want to start now!), there is still a small window of opportunity to join the Art with Fabric blog hop. Head over to Tweety Loves Quilting for all the details.
P.PS. Linking up with my favourite parties this week: The Quilting Room with Mel Crazy Mom Quilts
Be sure to visit these links for lots of great quilt inspiration in one place.
As predicted, there was little sewing activity in the Gardner-Stephen house this week. But we did get to the Royal Adelaide Show.
The Crochet….
Do you remember I shared my daughter’s high hopes for her crochet entry at The Show this year? It is a Christmas Stocking that she designed and crocheted herself. She learnt to crochet during our 3 months in Germany last year, thanks to the school she attended there. She was pretty resistant to the idea at first, but there was no Kris Kringle present if you didn’t crochet yourself a bag for it to magically appear in. So with much wailing and gnashing of teeth, she learnt! Now she loves it.
This was the stocking she made specifically to enter into The Show. This pic was taken at home just before I took it into the show to be judged.
And here it is hanging in the show.
With a blue ribbon. Yes, indeedy, Miss 9 came first in her category. She is immensely pleased! And I am extremely proud too. Her crochet skills certainly surpass my own. 🙂 🙂
The Appliqué….
My entry to the show this year is a cushion in the class for “machine-embroidery, not computerised”. I entered an appliqué pirate owl that I designed myself. Ahoy me hearties!! Do you like him?
He has a blue ribbon too!! I admit, I am pretty excited. It’s the first blue ribbon I have ever received at the Royal Adelaide Show. Yay!!
Sorry these are not fabulous photos. The handicrafts are displayed in glass cabinets that make photography difficult.
The Fun….
My kids had a great day exploring the farm animals and science experiments. We finished up the day at the bubble bump ride.
Miss 9 on the Bubble Bump RideMaster 6 finding out how to make rolled oats. He does like his porridge.
I’ll leave you with the quilts I liked best at this year’s show. Sorry, I don’t know the details of most of the quilts. Many of the displays were too distant to be able to check out the tags. And I had a child in tow begging to check out the show bags. But please enjoy the eye-candy!
And the Quilts…..
Val Giles and Prue Wheal made his quilt called “Glimpses of the Flinders”. It won best two person quilt at The Royal Adelaide Show this week. I know the particulars of this quilt because it also won runner-up best of show at the 2017 South Australian Quilters’ Guild Festival of Quilts in August. It is a very beautiful piece of art. Enjoy.
P.P.S One of my blogger friends is running a give-away on her blog this week. If you live in the US or Canada and would like to win a OttLite Ultimate Storage and Mag Light head over and see Rachel at Rachel Rossi Designs.
P.P.PS. The other great give-aways I know of this week are:
– a free-motion quilting blog hop, organised by C&TPublishing. Visit the blogs for chances to win a copy of “Making Connections – A Free-Motion Quilting Workbook” by Dorie Hruska. Finishes 15 September. Find the start of the blog hop here.
– an Artful Improv quilting book by Cindy Grisdela that you can win from C&T Publishing here. Also finishes 15 September.
(These are not affiliate links. I just want you to know what’s out there this week. Pass it on and share the fun with your friends.) And don’t forget to follow my blog (by email in the sidebar or Bloglovin’ before you leave to make sure you find out what quilt fun I discover next week! I’m really going now. Bye! 🙂
Hope to see you again tomorrow!
Don’t worry kitty! We are looking at quilting bugs later on this week. 
Doing My Handiquilter Group Trapunto Homework
Colour Inspiration Tuesday Collection Number 2
Ahoy There Matey!!
