September 2017 Roundup

September 2017 Roundup at Clever Chameleon QuiltingSeptember 2017 Roundup at Clever Chameleon

How did September go for you? I hope you had a good month and managed to fit in some quilting, sewing or other favourite creative pursuit.

At the beginning of this month I signed up for the first time to Elm Street Quilters One Monthly Goal. The idea is that if I have a deadline, things happen. And this month, having a deadline has definitely helped. Because with everything else that has been going on there is no way I would have otherwise touched my nominated UFO this month.

So, for my September 2017 OMG, I set myself the tasks of finishing this patchwork quilt top for my daughter, then getting it basted and stabilised.

Jewel Tone Diamonds quilt in progress
Jewel Tone Diamonds quilt at the beginning of September. Follow the link for a tutorial on sewing the Y-seams on this quilt.

I did mention that I would like to get it quilted, but thankfully I didn’t set that as a goal, because it would have had to be chalked up as a miss. I am not rushing this one. And I definitely ran out of time!

Jewel Tone Diamonds finished quilt top
Jewel Tone Diamonds flimsy before layering, basting and quilting

Even with all those bias edges and Y-seams, the quilt top is pretty square! It will block up nicely. I am very pleased. It must be all the starch I used.

Jewel Tone Diamonds, basted

elephant batik

And here is a small portion of the back after I basted and stabilised with stitch in the ditch quilting along the zigzag rows. How adorable is the fabric my daughter chose for the backing? Elephant batik! Cute!

Jewel Tone Diamonds is a large single (twin) bed size quilt. Hopefully it will last my dear daughter well into her teens once the detailed quilting and the binding are done.

I am linking this post up with the OMG September Finish Link-up. This coming month is going to be too insane to add extra unnecessary deadlines, so sadly I will be sitting out the October One Monthly Goal.

What else has happened at Clever Chameleon in September?

  • We had 3 new Colour Inspiration Tuesdays. On Hoppy Tuesday, we had three colour boards and chatted about frog appliqué quilts. For Strawberry Vines we delved into some free-motion quilting inspiration, and for Hot Chocolate we geared up to join a black, white and colour quilt along (that you also still have time to join – don’t forget to check it out)
Hoppy Tuesday color scheme from Clever Chameleon
Hoppy Tuesday
Hoppy Tuesday color scheme from Clever Chameleon
Hoppy Tuesday
Strawberry Vines colour scheme from Clever Chameleon
Strawberry Vines
Hot Chocolate colour scheme from Clever Chameleon
Hot Chocolate

 

 

 

 

Hoppy Tuesday color scheme from Clever Chameleon
Hoppy Tuesday

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also had a look back at the next set of 12 mood boards from Colour Inspiration Tuesday, so that we can find them easily anytime. The Colour Inspiration Tuesday Collections are now also available directly from the main website menu. 🙂

Color Inspiration Tuesday collection 2
Colour Inspiration Tuesday Collection 2

 

  • Jaffas and Cream quit at Clever Chameleon
    Jaffas and Cream quilt

    I also did a lot of quilting (by my standards) this month……. I did two charity quilts. Jaffas and Cream and also Bugs in my Garden. I also had a go at a trapunto design from Geta’s Quilting Studio and made it into a mini quilt. 

Bugs in my Garden
Bugs in my Garden quilt
Dream Big trapunto mini quilt
Dream Big trapunto mini quilt

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • And finally, I wrote up three posts with instructions on how to quilt some of my favourite free-motion motifs:

Strawberry Vines quilting tutorial

There was a discussion (with diagrams) about how to free-motion quilt strawberry leaves, strawberry flowers and strawberry berries on a continuous line of loop-de-loops.

Baking paper quilting tutorial

There was a tutorial on how to use baking paper to quilt designs without marking them, with a downloadable flower template to try.

And I also provided a downloadable template on how to quilt all the critters and garden motifs that featured in my post about Bugs in my Garden free-motion quilting.

Bugs in my Garden quilting
flowers and suns
dragonflies and butterflies
Bugs in my Garden quilting
snails and leaves

 

 

 

 

 

 

All of these tutorials were a lot of fun. If you missed any posts, be sure to check them out!

See you in October!

September was a very busy month at Clever Chameleon for sure. Especially when you add in the things I have also finished in advance so I can still play in blog land with you while we are working away from home.

I hope you found something of worth at Clever Chameleon in September. If you had a favourite post, I’d love to know.

Wishing you a wonderful October!

P.S. Linky parties I had a blast at this week:
Quilting Room with Mel, Sew Can Do, Quilt Fabrication, Sew Fresh Quilts, Crazy Mom Quilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Busy Hands Quilts, Love Laugh Quilt.
Click on the links to find lots and lots of quilt and craft projects from the last week or so.

UFO Attack – September 2017

September quilt goal 2017

Gonna Finish This Sucker! One Monthly Goal with Elm Street Quilts

This month I am very excited to be participating for the first time in OMG at Elm Street Quilts. I work so much better with deadlines to keep me focussed. Otherwise I have too many fun ideas…..

In July I started a tumbling blocks quilt in solidsJewel Tones colour scheme from Clever Chameleon. 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. 

Jewel Tones Quilt in progress
Tumbling Blocks Quilt stalled as other things hit the priority queue. Time to finish this off!

Tumbling blocks tutorialI 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! 🙂

blue Clever Chameleon logo

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.

Sewing Tumbling Blocks Patchwork

How to Sew a Tumbling Blocks Quilt

From the Sewing Room – Sewing the Jewel Tone Diamonds Tumbling Blocks Quilt (Part II)

Jewel Tone Triangles color scheme from Clever ChameleonOver the last few weeks I have been working on a new project stemming from Colour Inspiration Tuesday. It all started with the Jewel Tone Triangles colour scheme. What was supposed to be a quick example of how to use this colour scheme has turned into a significant part of my recent quilt story! My daughter has convinced me to actually make her a Jewel Tone Triangles-derived quilt. This quilt is my first effort at tumbling blocks and is now called Jewel Tone Diamonds.

Original Jewel Tone Diamonds quilt idea
Original Jewel Tone Diamonds quilt idea

Firstly, my daughter and I redesigned the quilt idea to fit her bed and the fabrics available locally. Together we cut the diamond pieces and did a trial layout. Then I set about finding out how to sew the Y-Seams of the tumbling blocks. I wrote you a tutorial about that process here.

Now I am in the process of constructing the Jewel Tone Diamonds quilt top. Some people have asked how to put the tumbling block units together. The short answer is…. You don’t. While the illusion of this quilt is of lots of three-unit pieces stacked together, this is not the simplest way to construct the patchwork. Let me tell you how……

The process I use to construct the Jewel Tone Diamonds Tumbling Block Quilt.

Tumbling blocks layout diagram
Here is the basic tumbling blocks design. Fabrics of three colour values are arranged in a repeating pattern to get the 3D effect.

The method I use is a divide and conquer process – breaking the patchwork up into pieces that will sew together most easily. This process will work for any tumbling block design. This is because it ignores the pictorial design and only relies on the grid-work of diamonds that underlies the tumbling blocks design.

Here is a basic diagram of the tumbling blocks design carved up into sew-able pieces.

Tumbling blocks layout diagram
Here is the same basic tumbling blocks design carved up into the pieces I believe are the easiest to sew

So, what I am sewing as my basic patchwork unit is actually a six-pointed star within a hexagon. Not a three-diamond unit tumbling block. Let me step you through what this looks like in real life.

How to sew the basic Tumbling Blocks Hexagon Star Unit

Step 1

The very first thing to do is to lay out your diamonds for the section of quilt you are working on and separate them into the units that need to be sewn. This makes it easier to see what has to be sewn to what next. Unless you have a cat or small child to keep disturbing them for you…..

Anyway, pets and small children aside, this is what you are aiming for:

tumbling blocks units
Separate your Tumbling Blocks diamonds into hexagon sewing units.

Make sure each diamond is in it’s correct relative position in the quilt, but otherwise ignore the tumbling blocks design. Right now we are trying to see stars and hexagons!

Step 2

Let’s use a methodical way to sew the hexagon-star units together.

sewing tumbling blocks step 2
Start with these three diamonds first. Sew them together starting with the top two. Don’t forget to leave the seam allowances un-sewn where the broad corners meet.

Start on the left side of your hexagon unit and sew the three leftmost diamonds together in order from the top down. First sew the top two diamonds together, leaving the seam open one quarter of an inch at the broad angle end.

sewing tumbling blocks
Sew the first two diamonds together from the narrow point towards the broad point.

If you are not sure how to stop at the quarter seam allowance without marking it, I have covered this in detail in my post on how to sew great Y-seams.

sewing tumbling blocks step 2
Your first seam should look like this

Open it up and press the seams open.

sewing tumbling blocks step 2
So far, so good.

Now add the third diamond in this group in the same way. Sew from the pointy end to the the broad end and leave the seam allowance un-sewn. Press with seams open.

sewing tumbling blocks step 2
Your sewing will now look like this

Step 3

Now we need to do two Y-seams. We want to add in these two diamonds next:

sewing tumbling blocks step 3
Next sew in these two diamonds

I usually sew the bottom one in first, as it causes the seam allowances to nest better later and reduce bulk in the middle of the hexagon star unit. But don’t get too uptight about this if you  accidentally start with the top one instead. It will be fine.

If you need help sewing the Y-seams, I step you through this in the previous post about sewing the Jewel Tone Diamonds quilt. 

Once you are done, flat press with seams open and you will have a piece of patchwork that looks like this.

Sewing tumbling blocks step 4

Step 4

The next step is simply to repeat steps 2 and 3 with the other half of the hexagon star diamond set that you laid out in step 1.

Sewing tumbling blocks step 4
Sew this group of diamonds next, exactly as you did in steps 2 and 3.

Then your layout assembly should look like this. Two sewn half-units and two loose diamonds. We are going to get this done before those kids and cats mess this up after all……

Sewing tumbling blocks step 4
Two half units finished and ready for assembly

As an aside, you might notice if you compare this photo to the last, that I have changed my mind about the position of several diamond colours. It’s called designing on the fly…. or quilting your own story! I tend to do this quite a bit. In all likelihood, it won’t be the last deviation from the “pattern” that my daughter and I settled on. She won’t mind…. the original layout was a bit arbitrary anyway.

Step 5

Now we need to get those two half-units sewn together. Basically this is just a straight seam. But there are two things we need to achieve in this seam, and therefore to keep in mind.

The first thing is that we need to remember is to keep the seam allowances open on both ends of this seam. If you forget this, you will be grumpy! Both ends of this middle seam are going to eventually be Y-seams.  To get those last two diamonds in we will be returning to our set-in seam strategy.

The second thing is: you need to get those points lined up as best you can in the middle of the six-pointed star. Everyone’s tolerance of how well points need to match is different. I’m pretty fussy, and I wish I could be more relaxed about it. Some care here is advised though, as points that are too sloppy are going to make your tumbling blocks look like they are not well stacked! I will aim to write a tutorial about how I match tricky points another day soon, but in the meantime you will need to use your favourite method to get your points matched to your satisfaction.

sewing tumbling blocks step 5
Two half-units joined with centre seam. Don’t forget to leave the seam allowances un-sewn at both ends!

Step 6

Sew in the last two diamonds with your amazing Y-seam skills (revisit the method here if you need to, but you should be a pro by now!). You will now have a completed hexagon star unit to add to your tumbling blocks quilt.

Sewing tumbling blocks quilt step 6
Hexagon-star tumbling block quilt unit all finished.

Step 7

Continue dividing and sewing your tumbling blocks quilt into manageable units like this. At the edges of the quilt you will have partial units. Remember this original diagram? These part-units are fine. They are supposed to be incomplete.

Tumbling blocks layout diagram
Divide your diamonds into sewable units.

Here is my stack of units finished ready to complete the Jewel Tone Diamonds tumbling blocks quilt top.

sewing tumbling blocks units step 7
Tumbling block hexagon star units all done.

How to sew the Hexagon Star Tumbling Blocks Quilt Units together

Once you are ready to start assembling the tumbling blocks quilt from your hexagon star units, the process is relatively simple. Start with the top row of units and simply sew them together down the straight seams. Remember, leave the seam allowances open!! Add in the loose diamonds that go in between the large units, to complete the very top of the patchwork.

Also at this point I sew the 3-diamond units on the lefthand side of the quilt to their neighbouring hexagon star unit. Your pieces will now look like this. One completed row, plus some fish-shaped units down the lefthand side.

Sewing tumbling blocks together step 1

Then add one unit at a time to the next row. Sew the seams in the order shown in the next diagram. Sew the first straight seam and press. Then sew the second straight seam that makes up the first Y-seam. Don’t forget to always sew from the middle of a Y-seam outwards to the free end. That way you not push any excess fabric into the Y-seam and everything will sit flat. Sew the third seam, also from the middle out. Great! First piece in.

Sewing in the second row of tumbling blocks

Sew the next piece in, in the same way, etc., etc. until you are all done!

sewing tumbling blocks units together

I’ll leave you with a photo of my Jewel Tone diamonds quilt progress to date. I like it. So pretty!

Jewel Tone Diamonds quilt progress | Clever Chameleon Quilting

blue Clever Chameleon logoFinishing up

One final comment. I can hear some of you wondering why I didn’t just sew it together as a series of tumbling blocks. Well you could. But I didn’t fancy trying to line up the points at the junctions at the same time as pulling off a Y-seam.

tumbling blocks sewing alternative
Is it possible to get all this lined up nicely?

Remember, until I started this quilt, I had never sewn Y-seams before. But even now, I don’t think that this would be fun. And quilting should definitely be fun! If you do your tumbling blocks this way, I’d love to hear how you manage it, and how hard it is! Maybe it is easier than I expect?….. Perhaps it gives you more control over how the points line up? Please let me know.

PS. These hexagon star blocks also work to make other designs based on diamonds. Just rearrange the colours differently and you have a star quilt instead. (Or is it circles of tumbling blocks?) Designs abound! 

Diamond star quilt layout


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. And don’t forget to link up all your current quilting projects on Tuesdays at our Colour Inspiration Linky parties!

rainbow Clever Chameleon logoThe Chameleon turns rainbow with pleasure when he hears from you. I am more reserved, so I will respond in gratitude by email instead. Now that it’s your turn…. Scroll right to the end, leave me a comment and tell me, what do you think? Thanks for connecting!

From the Sewing Room: Jewel Tone Diamonds

The Jewel Tone Diamonds Quilt Design: My first quilt to be made from Colour Inspiration Tuesday!

A few days ago I was playing around with an idea that arose from Colour Inspiration Tuesday. Remember this?!

Jewel Tone Triangles-inspired quilt layout: Jewel Tone Diamonds
Jewel Tone Diamonds quilt design from Colour Inspiration Tuesday

If not, you can find the origins of this quilt idea in this post here – Colour Inspiration Tuesday – Jewel Tone Triangles. Briefly, I used a fascinating photo by Ferdinand Stöhr at Unsplash.com to generate a colour palette I loved. In addition, the photo itself is very geometric. It immediately brought to mind a quilt of 3D triangular pyramids in sweeping colour changes of purples and blue-greens.

Originally I was just going to create the colour scheme and serve it up for Colour Inspiration Tuesday as per usual. But the urge to design a quilt in this colour scheme was too strong. So I ended up using the Jewel Tone Triangle colours, plus two more related tones, to mock up a quick example of a tumbling blocks quilt. This was the original Jewel Tone Diamonds quilt design above. And that should have been the end of that!

But I am a sucker for: pretty colours, new quilt ideas and my daughter……

As it happened, my daughter wandered past as I was finishing that post, and said she really liked That design for Her bed…..**batting eyelids here** AND I was already considering taking a project with me while we travelled for a week for Paul’s work…… AND a local store is having it’s annual sale which means that Prima solid colour flat fats (50cmx52cm pre-cuts) are $1 each, which is 75% off…..

Flat Fats for Jewel Tone Diamonds quilt
Fabrics for Jewel Tone Diamonds quilt

So, the Voice in my head that must be obeyed said “If I take some fabric with me, I could have a quilt cut out and ready to sew when we get home next week….”

Then the same Voice said “And with fabric at $4 per metre, it is a Very good time to be experimenting with a new design. Even if said fabric is not the best quality that money can buy”.

And I don’t argue with the Voice. :). The Voice is also right about the very average fabric quality, but this can be a bonus when it comes to cutting time… It is sooooo much harder to make that first cut into a beautiful print or batik, especially on an unproven design!! These will be perfect.

Anyway, to cut a long story short…..

I bought 11 different solid colour 100% cotton fabrics in the colour range covered by the Jewel Tone Triangles colour scheme. This is quite a few more colours than in the original colour scheme of 7, I know. But this is what happens when you use something as an ideas springboard and start quilting your own story!

I started with the basic colours of the colour scheme and expanded the colour set with what looked good in the store. The new colour scheme (Jewel Tone Diamonds) now looks like this:

Jewel Tone Diamonds color scheme

These colours are slightly brighter than the original design, but that’s fine, my daughter and I love bright. More colours gives me more options for variety in the tumbling blocks, and enough fabric to expand the pattern to a single bed size. Brilliant!

Expanding the Jewel Tone Diamonds Quilt design and cutting the diamonds

We have spent this week in Arkaroola, an oasis in the South Australian Outback. So, I have been admiring this view out the laundry door while ironing my pretties ready for cutting!  Much nicer than the dismal suburban winter at home!!

Arkaroola

Child using GO! cutter
It is great being able to share the cutting with my daughter. The GO! cutter allows her to be involved even though she is too young to use a rotary cutter!

I re-designed the Jewel Tone Diamonds quilt to accommodate my 11 fabric colours and to be single-bed sized. I worked out that if I used my Diamonds 4×4 GO! Die, a single bed top would require about 6 diamonds across and 12 rows of tumbling blocks along the length. Then my daughter and I used my GO! cutter to cut out 20 diamonds in each colour for her new quilt and she and I did a test layout of the pieces together.

Passing on the love

My daughter is just beginning to show an interest in quilting, so this project is perfect for her to start participating. Because I have designed this quilt with the diamond GO! cutter die in mind, she is able to help with the cutting. She loves to help cut the pieces by winding the handle. I also got some “help” laying out the pieces. However, since I like to make adjustments on the fly, this is a slightly trickier process to share with my new apprentice!

Diamonds cut out, ready for layout.
Diamonds cut out and ready for layout.
Starting to layout the Jewel Tone Diamonds.
Jewel Tone Diamonds
Progress!

 

 

 

 

 

Once we had an idea of the number of pieces we would need for each particular colour, we cut more diamonds as needed. This is what our current layout looks like:

Jewel Tone Diamonds quilt trial layout
In the end we were pretty pleased with our expanded Jewel Tone Diamonds design. So pretty!

Colour Value and the Tumbling Block quilt design

Here’s the most important tip for tumbling block quilts…… It is important to pay absolute attention to the colour values of your fabrics and where you place them. To begin with, you must decide which of the three faces of the “cube” you want to be the lightest, which will be the darkest and which will have an intermediate colour value. Then you have to stick to this decision for each set of three pieces that make up a block. Otherwise the 3D illusion of this design does not work. 

My daughter actually grasped this concept pretty well. To help us keep to our chosen regime of lightest value on the top of each cube, medium value on the left and darkest value on the right, we took occasional photos in black and white. This is the easiest way to judge colour value.

Black and white photo of Jewel Tone Diamonds
To easily judge the colour value of your quilts, take photos in black and white.

A problem and the solution:

Black and white color value comparison
The two fabrics on the left and right of this cube unit are actually quite different greens but with the same colour values.

In our colour palette there are two fabrics that I have struggled to differentiate as to which has the darker value. One is fairly saturated in colour (is a hue), and the other is a tone. The toned fabric has been darkened with black, but also diluted with white. So the two fabrics have ended up a similar colour value. 

In the end, I have designated the more saturated colour to be the “darker” fabric so that we can be consistent with our layout. Then, when it comes to quilting time, I can help maintain the 3D illusion by quilting the toned fabric with a light thread and the saturated fabric with a dark thread. The overall effect of this will be to darken the perceived value of the saturated fabric and to lighten the toned fabric, preserving the 3D tumbling block design. Sometimes you just can’t get enough absolutely perfect fabric colours when you are shopping for a quilt….. Don’t despair, just think about what else you can do to get the effect you want!

Heading home to sew Jewel Tone Diamonds

Cutting pieces for a quilt, walks in the bush, campfire cooking with the kids and helping with the local war on a Mexican Poppy infestation….. It has been a lovely time away.

Mexican poppy
Exotic Mexican Poppy weeds are a threat to the Arkaroola ecosystem. 
Arkaroola
Arkaroola is a beautiful rugged landscape and home to the Yellow-footed Rock Wallaby.

It will also be nice to be back at the sewing machine next week. Although…. now that I have all those diamonds cut and laid out, I can see just how many Y-seams I have! Just for the record, I haven’t sewn Y-seams before….. this could be interesting! Anyway, my adorable daughter is being quite insistent that she should sew them. Never mind she has never even sewn a basic seam yet! I have promised to help her to learn how to make a quilt, but obviously (and to her disgust) we will start with something beginner friendly. Now that she is finally showing some interest in sewing, I want her to love quilting….. I’ll keep you posted on that journey too.

blue Clever Chameleon logoIn the meantime, we have 680 km to cover to get home. Then I get to have a day at the South Australian Quilters’ Guild Festival of Quilts. The day after that I plan to visit a Tentmakers of Cairo display. What a lovely week to look forward to!

I’ll definitely be checking out lots of quilting stories this week!

Update: you can find my progress on the Jewel Tone Diamonds Quilt, including a new tutorial on how to sew Y-seams here.