Wishful Thinking: Colour & Inspiration Tuesday

I’ve been doing some Wishful Thinking…..

This month’s Island Batik Ambassador challenge has caused me lots and lots of thinking and sketching; drafting and redrafting. My task is to create a 45″ x 60″ or larger quilt for a child or a teen using the AccuQuilt Cleopatra’s Fan block die. They call this innocent-sounding little challenge “Child’s Play”.

Child’s Play?! “Rocket Science” is more like it! 😀 Tricky….. So many ideas, but all of them too small or too big or the wrong colour….etc, etc. Happily, in the end, I have a beautiful and simple idea for this month’s quilt. But, oh, the convoluted thought-roads I took to get there! Luckily for me there was some lovely mind-scenery on the way.

“She’s finally lost it”, I hear you thinking. Well….. likely so. But then, I have an imaginary Chameleon as a sidekick, so maybe I never “had it” to begin with, haha. Don’t worry, now that I know the way to the quilt, I will show you the shortcut. I will spare you the ideas maze.

And I’m ok, thanks for asking

The babbling is just a bit of over-excitement from finally being happy with my choices for this month’s challenge, t’is all. I’m just decompressing. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right? I have a whole book-load of ideas I could make with Cleopatra’s Fan now. Not bad for a block that I’d never heard of 6 months ago! A beautiful block, I might add. Do you know Cleopatra’s Fan? (affiliate link) It’s this one.

And the main fabrics I have chosen to feature are these: Graphic Gems. I had a pack of 10″ pre-cuts to play with, plus some coordinating Basics, Blenders and Neutrals prints. All given to me by the very generous Island Batik for use in my role as an Ambassador.

Rescued from a thought rut

I know I said I would take you the short way to this quilt, and I will…. just permit me one little detour…..

When I first unpacked my new Accuquilt Cleopatra’s Fan die, I was stunned by the block’s elegance, beauty and maturity. I was also part-baffled as to how it should become a children’s quilt and part-excited….. surely a peacock quilt was in my future?! I know a few of you had a similar response. But try as I might, a suitable peacock quilt would not appear on my computer screen. Mind destination: Frustration City.

But a reader friend with impeccable timing, Cindy, suggested that the Cleopatra’s Fan would be a good starting point for a quilt with flowers, bugs and butterflies …. even a house and sun etc. The mental picture I got from Cindy was a child’s drawing. I liked it. And more importantly, it got me away from obsessing over designs that weren’t happening. The peacock, and the other ideas.

I didn’t end up taking Cindy up on her suggestion, but the discussion still helped me enormously. I suddenly had a new destination in mind and a road map too. So never underestimate the impact of your comments, people! Cindy’s interaction got me thinking about which flowers might be compatible with Cleopatra’s Fan, which led me pretty swiftly to dandelions and from there to dandelion clocks. I like dandelions (even though they are terrible weeds here), and have quilted them before. Crikey, looking back, that was over two years ago, not long after I started this blog! And there’s even a free pattern in that post too! Anyways….

How I turned Cleopatra’s Fan into a Dandelion Clock

Firstly, I went outside to do some research. Luckily, it is dandelion season here. I checked out the clocks and the leaves…. and grabbed a wish while I was there….. 🙂

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It was pretty easy to re-colour my draft Cleopatra’s blocks to reveal a dandelion head. I could have pieced the Cleopatra’s Fans to create the clock, but I wanted a gridded background with my Graphic Gems fabrics. And I also wanted the appliqué stem to visually appear to lie under the clock. These design decisions were going to make piecing a nightmare. So I decided to show you an alternative use for the Cleopatra’s Fan die and do some turned appliqué instead.

Making appliqué templates using the AccuQuilt die.

I fused three layers of freezer paper together and cut one copy each of Cleopatra’s Fan shapes B, D and H, and then their reverse shapes too using the AccuQuilt GO! cutter.

Then I marked the points of the 1/4 seam allowance on all the freezer paper pieces….

….. and trimmed the templates down approximately 1/4 inch on all sides. I marked the points by eye and simply cut smooth lines between the dots, parallel to the edges. The appliqué shapes share no boundaries and hence, do not have to be 100% exact. Although I checked them against my test block, and they are pretty spot on. This process was sooooo much easier than it would have been to draft, print and trace the same appliqué shapes from scratch. Thanks AccuQuilt!!

Here’s my prepared templates. I also prepared an oval shape for the clock’s centre and a smaller oval for the four drifting seeds.

Then I cut my dandelion clock appliqué fabric pieces with the Cleopatra’s Fan die from a neutral Island Batik fabric called Shaved Ice Snowman.

I used my favourite turned appliqué method to finish preparing the dandelion clock shapes. Briefly, I ironed the freezer paper shapes to the fabric shapes, used diluted Elmer’s washable glue to turn the edges and then removed the papers. I didn’t even bother removing the alignment tabs on the fabric pieces.

Here’s all my turned appliqué pieces prepared.

Fused Appliqué too

I also drafted a dandelion leaf, which I made into 3 different sized fused appliqué shapes. And I made a dandelion stem. These were made with Island Batik’s Blender Bubbles Sprout and paper-backed fusible adhesive. Luckily I have been sent this Blender twice over the last two years, so I still had just under three quarters of a yard to play with.

Finally, I made fusible letters to add the word “DREAM” to the quilt. Since this quilt is to be for a young person, probably a young teen girl, I consulted with my daughter about whether it should have a word of inspiration on it. “Yes”, she said, “because it looks more balanced with the white writing at the bottom”. I agreed.

Next question was, whether that word should be “WISH”, “DREAM” or something else entirely? We went with “DREAM” because it is similar to “WISH”, but implies more active engagement towards the desired outcome. At least, that’s how we felt.

The background fabrics

To make the background for my dandelion design, I first trimmed my Graphic Gems 10″ squares to 9.75″, because they shrink unevenly in the warp vs the weft directions when I prewash them. I also decided to remove the lightest fabrics from the the collection because I wanted a solid wall of colour behind the dandelion motif. Then I added more colour by adding extra squares cut from the purple, maroon, teal and blue Island Batik Blender and Basics yardages sent to me in July and January. In all there are 54 squares in the background.

I sewed my 9.75″ squares into a 6 x 9 rectangle background.

Then I positioned the appliqués. The leaves and stem were secured by fusing. The AccuQuilt-cut turned-edge appliqués were secured with a few spots of Elmer’s washable glue. The turned-edge appliqués were stitched down by free-motion blind stitch with Wonderfil Decobob 80wt polyester over a polyester batting. The dandelion clock shapes were then cut free of the excess polyester batting to leave the appliques raised (trapunto style).

I then layered the quilt top over black 80/20 cotton/polyester HOBBS batting given to me as an ambassador. I was very happy to realise that I still had enough of this batting to make this quilt if I frankenstitched several pieces together. Black batting is supposed to be good for making dark coloured quilts look more vibrant, so it should be perfect for this.

Finally, I stitched the leaves, stem and letters down with Madeira rayon using multiple rounds of straight stitch. I finished off the dandelion clock with straight-stitch embroidery to join the “parachutes” to the seeds.

And here it is!

Now I need to decide what to put on the back of the quilt so that I can finish the quilting. But that is a job for another day.

Readers with Dreams

Always one to stick ever-so-loosely to a theme, this week the Chameleon is featuring some of last week’s link-ups that share dreams.

Andrée of Quilting and Learning – What a Combo! has a corker of a dream, with a plan. An exit strategy, with a 3 year, 2 month time span counting down to her new exciting phase of life. Congrats and good luck, Andrée in making your dreams a reality! We’re cheering you on the whole way.

Eve of Patches of Destruxion has been doing her part towards a larger collective dream of keeping usable textiles out of landfill. Check out Eve’s upcycled toy food treasures.

Question: What’s worse than finding a worm in your apple? Answer: Finding half a worm!

Another question: What’s worse than finding an imaginary Chameleon in your apple? Answer: Looking for one. hahaha. The answer is NOT “Finding half a Chameleon”, that’s just nasty. 😀

And Mary at Made by Marney hit the theme on the head with The Last Unicorn – a quilt block and instructions to make it into a pillow. Dream Big! This is a free pattern in the still current Once Upon a Story blog hop. Head on over to Mary’s to download your copy.

Speaking of the Once Upon a Blog Hop, this week’s links for all your free patterns and chances to win great prizes are here:

September 17, 2019
Barbara Dieges (Two Little Dickie Birds)
Miss P Designs USA (Hey Diddle Diddle)
Seams To Be Sew (The Nutcracker)

Thursday, 19 September
Duck Creek Mountain Quilting (Little Boy Blue)
Cynthia’s Creating Ark (Rapunzel)
Elizabeth Coughlin Designs (Aesop’s Fables)

Now, let’s get this week’s link party started!

Are you following a textile dream or two?

Dreams can be big or small. A quick squirrel project, or a whole year’s worth of sewing. What are you working on, or have recently finished in your sewing room? We want to know so we can visit 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!

• 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!