Tic Tac Toad – Colour & Inspiration Tuesday

An Island Batik Ambassador Quilt Finish

May is drawing to a close – it’s starting to feel more wintery here, and it’s time to show you my finished Island Batik Ambassador quilt for this month. My checkers quilt, Hop to be Square is my Island Batik project for May. I hope you saw last week’s post explaining how the flimsy of Hop to be Square came about…. It was nearly as much of a surprise to me as anyone – it was certainly not the quilt I sat down to make!

Today I get to show you what I put on the back side of Hop to be Square. Just like the quilt top, the back took itself off plan as soon as it was in progress! To begin with, I thought I was the one being clever….. I had three checkered batik fabrics from Island Batik. And since the quilt front is a board for playing Checkers, they seemed like the simple and perfect fit for the backing……

But then the fabrics played me!

This is “Hop to be Square”

Last week I had this quilt flimsy finished ready to show you. I had a lot of fun making it. 😀

This week I turned it into a finished quilt, with HOBBS batting of course, because that was the key part of this month’s challenge. And because I had a fabulous new batting sample to try out. But more on that in a bit. Let’s talk backing first.

The back of Hop to be Square

….. was just going to be a simple affair made of these three fabrics from the Island Batik Check it Out collection. I had half a yard of each in stash.

But. The quilt top was too wide to simply use a width of fabric to cover the back. And in fact, it was also too tall to only use three half yards to cover it. I had to come up with a pieced plan to expand these fabrics to at least 53″ square.

The obvious patchworker’s choice was to fill it out with sashing. Easily done.

But then the cogs started whirring…… hmmmmm….. Nine squares laid out with sashing looks a lot like a Noughts and Crosses board. Oh, that’s great, because that makes it a double sided game quilt. Yessssss!

I used the maximum size squares I could get from the Check It Out half yards… about 17.5″ unfinished, and joined them with 2″ black sashing. Black batik-weight borders sealed the deal and got the size I was after.

And Tic Tac Toad? You named the back of your quilt?!!

Sure thing! As I was sewing the borders on the backing, in my head was a little voice going “tic tac toe, tic tac toe….” which is actually quite weird, because here in Australia we almost always call this game by it’s British name, Noughts and Crosses.

And then another little neuron piped up…… “You want to add frogs to this side too, to keep it in theme with the front, don’t you? Yes, you do. Where shall we put some frogs on the back? Tic tac toe, tic tac toe, tic tac……. toad. Tic Tac Toad!!!!?! Where did that thought come from? hahahahaha I love it.” Yup folks, it can be a weird scary place, in my head. 😀

So that was it. One frog (toad). Right in the middle of the Noughts and Crosses board. And another name. Tic Tac Toad!

As an aside, I was going to put a crouching frog in the centre of that middle square. But after I cut it, I realised that I had cut the wrong half of the frog die shape and ended up with the extended frog shape. And that was the last scrap of my preferred fabric, so there was no re-do. No matter, swimming/leaping frog it is, then.

So the quilt redesigned itself to the last!

Hop to be Square meets Tic Tac Toad

The main theme of May for the Island Batik Ambassadors is the batting. So it is with great pleasure that I point out to you that I used the Black Cotton/Polyester 80/20 batting from HOBBS to complete this quilt.

I gently hand-prewashed this batting, to see how much black dye came out of it. A moderate amount did, something to keep in mind if you are using this batting. Below is what it looks like after washing and drying. Still very black.

I genuinely liked working with this batting in combination with Island Batik’s black batik-weight fabric. In the past when I have used black fabric as a quilt feature, the light lint that accumulates on the surface from the batting annoys me. I have been known to spend hours with a sticky roller trying to keep it to a minimum.

But not this time. Look how clean-looking the surface stayed…. if the lint falls in the sewing room and no one can see it, is it really there…. ?

Anyway, no visible stickies. Very little white fluff either, only what was hanging around my sewing space from my ongoing Love with a Twist project. If you have the option, I highly recommend this batting for dark quilts. So far, in my limited experience, it has been brilliant.

I quilted this quilt simply: stitch-in-the-ditch around all the squares of the checkerboard. And then I filled in around the frogs on the Hop to be Square top side with shallow swirls. I finished it with a grey-on-grey animal print batik binding – I was really pleased to find something that looked great on both sides in stash.

I was going to go get you some nice “In the Wild” shots of this quilt, but it’s raining and cold this week. We need lots of rain here, so bring it on. Glory shots outdoors will have to wait until the sunshine returns.

In the meantime, enjoy these instead….

Wendy of Pieceful Thoughts of my Quilting Life invited us over for a cuppa at her place to use her new placemats. The Chameleon gratefully accepted, although he may need a straw……

He enjoyed his visit to Wendy’s patio… and you can too if you head over to her blog to admire her beautiful quilted placemats. Tell Wendy I sent you for an extra cookie 😉

Are you following along the colour challenge at Patterns by Jen’s? Roseanne and Sue at Home Sewn by Us are. And they are all up to date for the month with their latest lime green block. Isn’t their block collection looking great?

There are always fun and games going on at Roseanne’s place, head on over, and maybe even spare a thought for Sue…. keeping an eye on one of my favourite sewing dynamos! I bet Sue wishes she had chameleon eyes some days! 😀

No crabby business here – this is the fun side of the island!

So, join in the fun! Tell us, what are you working on, or have recently finished in your sewing room? We want to know so we can visit, admire and be inspired. Link up a blog post, an IG post or simply a photo from your computer.  See if you can get the Chameleon to turn quilted with happiness. We’d love to see your quilting colours!

How to be a part of the Chameleon’s Quilting Inspiration Party….

• Link up your latest or recent quilt/sewing excitement. All quilt construction stages welcome – finished quilts, quilt blocks – even fabric pulls! Or inspiration sources!
• You have 50 characters in the link description…. tell us who you are and what your fantastic project is.
• URL links are not necessary to link up…. non-bloggers 100% welcome! If you don’t have a URL, you can link up with just a photo.
• Take a moment to visit some friends who came to the party – leave a little love and make their day. And a link back to Clever Chameleon is always appreciated.
• Do it now……. before you forget!

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The 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!

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, IG or FB. All your follow options can be found here. Don’t forget to link up all your current quilting projects on Tuesdays at our Colour & Inspiration Linky parties!