Craft Room De-Stash Challenge – Valentine’s Heart

Valentine's Heart scrappy quilt block

From the Sewing Room – Valentine’s Heart Quilt Block and a De-Stash Challenge

Do you want ideas and motivation to use up some stash and/or scraps from your craft room? You are not alone! Come join us in the Craft Room De-Stash Challenge – a group of bloggers committed to turning some of the craft supply lovelies we have hoarded into finished items. Of course, my projects are likely to all be fabric related, but this is a diverse group of crafters. So there will be lots of ideas in this hop to deal with whatever crafty skeletons you have hiding in your closet!

De-stash logo

Every month a group of bloggers are challenged by C’mon Get Crafty to create a new craft or project from their own stash of goodies! Check out some awesome creations you might be able to make from your own stash! #CraftRoomDestashChallenge

Really Dione, another project?!

Well, yes….. and no……

At the beginning of the year I stated that one of my goals was to reclaim my sewing space. And I have come to realise that part of that goal is going to have to be using up or moving on some of my stash. Like lots of quilters, I have a significant fabric stash, and a similarly rampant collection of scraps. So, joining in with this monthly hop (when I can) is actually one of the tools I am using to make this happen.

I suppose there are faster ways to reduce my stash…… But I bought and collected my resources because I like them. So I’d really rather take things to their intended conclusion and use them. What better way than to make some projects with the mentality of ONLY using stash?

Valentine’s Heart Quilt Block

For my first De-Stash Challenge project, I have decided to make a scrappy-heart quilt block. With Saint Valentine’s Day still a month away, you have time to make this block and turn it into a small Valentine’s Day project…. a pillow perhaps, or a lap quilt. This block with a border added would be a good size for a throw pillow. Or a dozen of these with a little sashing would make a nice lap quilt for someone you hold dear. I intend to eventually make a quilt with at least 12 of these, and probably some scrappy pieced blocks in between, so that the project uses a noticeable amount of stash! Probably not by Valentine’s Day 2018 though…..

Perhaps you’ve got red scraps left over from your red bear or other January Colour Challenge project? Now’s your chance to deal with them.

What you will need to make a Valentine’s Heart block:

a variety of small red fabric scraps
fabric for the background, 11 inches square or greater (depending on your intended use of this block)
fusible adhesive, 10″ square
sewing machine and general sewing supplies such as scissors and thread
printed heart-shape template (you can download mine here) Please make sure your printer isn’t scaling the printout before you print.

butterfly batik fabric — Here’s the fabric I am using for my block background. I have just enough in my stash for 12 pieces of 11 inches square.

How to create your Scrappy Valentine’s Heart Block

Step 1

Iron your red fabric scraps. Choose two scraps with straight edges (or trim to straight edges) and sew them together with a 1/4″ seam. Press.

Trim the joined pieces so that you have at least one new straight edge. It doesn’t matter which edge. The less you think about the crazy improv piecing the better!

Step 2

Choose a third scrap of red fabric and sew to the trimmed edge of the previously joined fabrics.

red crazy patchwork — Three red scraps pieced together

Again, press and trim off excess to create a new straight edge. Continue this crazy patchwork piecing until you have a piece large enough to cover the appliqué template.

enough red crazy patchwork — Enough red crazy patchwork cover the Valentine’s Heart template.

Note: you can build the crazy patchwork in several smaller pieces and join these together to get the final larger piece if you wish.

Step 3

Trace the heart shape onto the paper side of the fusible adhesive. Cut out with a little to spare around the outside of the shape.

To keep your appliqué from being stiff, remove most of the fusible adhesive from the centre of the heart shape. Leave about 1 inch around the outside edge of the heart.

Step 4

Fuse the heart-shape adhesive ring to the back of your crazy patchwork as per manufacturer’s instructions. Trim your heart to the outline.

Heart appliqué with fusible adhesive around the edge of the shape but not in the middle to keep the project soft.

Remove the paper backing and fuse your Valentine’s Heart to the centre of your backing fabric square. The minimum size for the backing square is 11 inches square, but you are welcome to make your blocks larger with more negative space around the heart.

Fused Valentine's Heart — Scrappy Valentine’s Heart fused to background fabric

Step 5

Use your favourite appliqué stitch to secure the heart to the backing.

Finished Valentine's Heart block — Finished Valentine’s Heart Block

One scrappy Valentine’s Heart block done.

I have enough of the butterflies batik background fabric in my stash for 12 heart blocks. I may vary the appliqué heart pattern between some of my blocks. Then, as I mentioned above, the rest of the quilt top will be scrappy squares.

The backing will also come from stash, and I also intend to use my growing pile of batting offcuts. It will be a bit of a Franken-quilt, but it should be sweet, and very usable, and require no new purchases (with the possible exception of binding, which I can probably obtain within the $10 limit).

You are invited…. Join us in De-Stashing your Craft Room.

If you’d like to join in the Craft Room De-Stash Challenge, you can request to join our Facebook group here!

And have a look at what everyone else has made! Perhaps there is the perfect project here for you to use up some stash…..

[inlinkz_linkup id=760881 mode=1]

P.S. Linking up with Cooking up Quilts, The Quilting Room with Mel, Love Laugh Quilt, Sew Fresh Quilts, Quilt Fabrication, The Inquiring Quilter, My Quilt Infatuation, Confessions of a Fabric Addict., Crazy Mum Quilts, Oh Scrap!

January 11, 2018January 19, 2024

Regatta Quilt Update and Red Bears Galore!

Regatta Quilt prgress

It’s been a week of good progress on a few things, but…..

Do you ever find, the less urgent and less important a quilt project is, the more attractive it is to work on?! That has been my struggle for much of this week. The Regatta Quilt, which is supposed to be my project for weary evenings and small slots of otherwise wasted time, has been calling to me…. “Sew me…. Sew me….. Please sew meeeeeeee! You know you want toooooooooo!”

The Regatta Quilt is a sew along being hosted by Home Sewn by Us. The quilt is designed by Daniela O’Connell and you can get the free pattern here. The sew along originally appealed to me because there are no deadlines and no pressure. Something to fit in as time allowed. But of course, now that I’ve started, I am sucked in and could happily sit and sew until it is done!

Pedal Pushers by Moda

I am making my Regatta Quilt with a jellyroll that I was gifted years ago. I threw away the packaging long ago, but I have dug up the details. The fabrics are “Pedal Pushers” by Lauren & Jessi for Moda fabrics. I am making this quilt for my daughter, as she is fast outgrowing some of her early childhood quilts.

Regatta Quilt Design Finalised

My self-restraint started out well. I cut some white strips and put them aside. I even joined pairs of white strips together into longer strips some time later, and again put them aside. Then! One evening I decided to choose a layout for the coloured strips, and….. well you know how it goes! Hours later…… way past bedtime…..

Regatta Quilt layout — This is just layed out – it’s not sewn

The Regatta Quilt calls for 19 pairs of coloured fabric strips and a light background fabric. My layout challenge was that the Pedal Pushers jellyroll doesn’t have pairs of fabric strips. Only a handful of fabrics are repeated. The rest of the jellyroll is made up of unique strips. So, I paired similarly coloured fabrics together and placed the more subtle of each pair of prints on the right and the bolder prints on the left. The picture above has a few gaps where one strip will be cut and used in two places.

Last night I did treat myself to a little sewing. Of course, I *should* have been writing this blog post.

Regatta strata — The sewn strips for my Regatta Quilt so far

Good thing I have a furry helper stopping me from sewing any more of it today. I only laid it out on the bed to look at it, honest……!

cat on Regatta Quilt — Did I mention it is hot and humid today….. black cat hairs should show up nicely on this quilt…… Serves me right for getting it out!

Coming up soon on Clever Chameleon

This morning I worked on my charity quilt for my One Monthly Goal. I have been designing a new FMQ motif to share with you in a mini tutorial next week (update – you can find the motifs here). As you will see, I have had a lot of fun with it.

She'll be Apples quilt

The Beary Colourful BOM update

The rest of my sewing time this week has been dedicated to testing my pattern for the Blue Bear block for the Beary Colourful BOM in February. Super fun. There will be sneak peeks on facebook closer to the end of the month, so like Clever Chameleon on FB to meet the blue bear before Feb 1!

red bear from Beary Colourful BOM — My original red bear

In the meantime, I am deliriously happy to see a few red bears appearing on the internet and social media. Have you made your red bear yet? There is still time to do a bear, or another red project to enter into Jen’s Color Challenge linky party at the end of the month.

Bears on Instagram

The very first red bear shared with me was this cutie by Jeannette. Jeanette managed to share her bear with me via Instagram, despite us both being absolute rookies with this platform! I am currently still getting the hang of this social medium, so I don’t actively promote my account yet. But if you would like to share your red bears with me via Instagram you will find me at @cleverchameleon.

Jeannette's Red Bear for the Beary Colourful BOM — Jeannette’s Bear

Notice how Jeannette has used a fussy-cut cupcake fabric print to fill in the tummy? This is a brilliant idea and a great tip for beginners. It is also a good option for anyone on a tight time budget.

Bears on facebook

More bears….. Several people have also been kind enough to share their bears with me on facebook. I was very excited when Denise shared her bear-in-progress, because she is doing turned edge appliqué! I have to take my hat off to her, as I thought some of the small details might not transfer well to this technique. But she has included everything!

Denise's red bear for the Beary Colourful BOM — Denise’s bear

Jean has made her red bear in raw edge appliqué with pink paws and a beautiful mottled background fabric. Isn’t he a character? Jean has been so encouraging as well – thanks Jean!

Jean's red bear from the Beary Colourful BOM — Jean’s bear

Bears on the Internet

Finally, I want to share that Lynette from What a Hoot Quilts has made her red bear too. She wasn’t supposed to start a new project just now – but I’m so glad she did. I especially want to show you Lynette’s, because she is doing her bears Quilt-As-You-Go. This is another great idea that you could do too.

Lynette's red bear fromt he Beary Colourful BOM — Lynette’s bear

Isn’t everyone so clever? I hope I get to see lots more red bears at Jen’s link up in late January. But if you would like to share them with me in the meantime, I am all eyes. You can send me a pic on Instagram (@cleverchameleon), via facebook or email (scroll right to the bottom and you will find the envelope icon).

P.S. Have you been following the latest Island Batik Ambassador blog hop? This is the last project for the 2017 Ambassadors, and I am really enjoying this hop. So many great ideas from so many talented quilters. Today there is a wow! quilt on the the hop at Slice of Pi Quilts. Wander over and have a look.

P.P.S. Linking up with Freemotion by the River, The Inquiring Quilter, Quilt Fabrication, Sew Fresh Quilts, My Quilt Infatuation, Confessions of a Quilt Addict, Crazy Mom Quilts, Busy Hands Quilts.

Freemotion by the river

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. Thanks for your support!

January 9, 2018January 19, 2024

Colour Inspiration Tuesday: Lovely Leucadendron

Lovely Leucadendron color scheme from Clever Chameleon

Welcome to Colour Inspiration Tuesday: Where we always find something interesting to inspire a quilt!

A couple of weeks ago, Paul and I took the kids to see the Christmas lights display at the local brewery. The display is a bit of a South Australian icon, and has been running for 58 years. The link I have supplied gives quite a good overview of the event, if you would like to see it. Like many other Adelaide locals, I do very much like our brewery lights display. But this year the take-home memory was actually a little plant growing in the council strip nearby.

Colour Inspiration Tuesday: Lovely Leucadendron

Many years ago, my mother grew lots of Australian natives and other plants that thrive in similarly poor, dry soil. Among the non-natives that my mother grew were quite a number of leucadendrons. So I tend to notice leucadendrons on my wanderings. But I have never seen one like this before!

leucadendron

I was struck by the beauty of this small bush, perhaps only 40cm high. Oh, the colours…. like a dusky sunset! I have called this colour scheme “Lovely Leucadendron”. Maroon stems, green and aqua lower leaves, graduating through lavender and lilac, peach, orange to yellow-green at the top of each stem. Once those yellow leaves open up there will be an insignificant flower cone in the middle. But it is the leaves that this plant is usually grown for. You can see why!

A Lovely Leucadendron Quilt?

If I was challenged to make a quilt inspired by this plant, it would have to be a string quilt. One with long thin-ish pieces like the strappy leucadendron leaves. It would be a scrap-busting quilt. And of course, made in the colours of the “lovely leucadendron”. After all, it was the colours that stopped me in my tracks in the first place!

If you arrange the string blocks like this you get leucadendron stems. Or peacock feathers….. 🙂 That’s ok, I like both. You could graduate the colours through the same sequence as the real-life bush, or just scatter them randomly…..

Lovely leucadendron quilt idea — Lovely Leucadendron quilt idea

These colours would also be great on the Regatta Quilt (currently featuring in Home Sewn with Us’s no pressure sew along). I have started my Regatta Quilt. It’s not being made in these colours though. I had an orphaned jelly roll which has finally found its destiny. More about that in a day or two.

Not into dusky rainbows?! Perhaps you’ve been seeing red lately instead…..

Are you joining in the 2018 Monthly Colour Challenge? I have seen a few Red Bears popping up in social media this week. You have no idea how happy it makes me to know that people are actually making my red bear pattern,. I’ll round up a few I/ve seen in a post for you later in the week. They are all different and it is amazing the variation in techniques and tweaks that have surfaced so far. What a clever bunch of quilters you all are!

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. Thanks for your support!

January 5, 2018January 19, 2024

The Beary Colourful BOM: Beginners Tips

bear with button eyes

Tips to help with the Beary Colourful BOM if you are a Beginner or don’t FMQ

This will be the last Beary Colourful post for a while (I hope). A few days ago I touched on the question of whether you can do the Beary Colourful BOM if you are a beginner.

Let’s start by saying two important things.

You can do whatever you want! Just because I wouldn’t consider the bears to be a beginner pattern, doesn’t mean that you can’t give it a crack. You won’t know what you can do until you try.
But…. don’t fall out of love with appliqué if the bear poses too much of a challenge at the moment. There are parts of the bear that call for some experience and quilting is definitely not meant to be frustrating.

So, I have come up with a short list of adjustments/tips that you can make if there are parts of the bear that might frustrate you.

Beginners Tips for the Red Bear

Use Batiks

Use batik fabrics for the applique pieces. Batiks have a tighter, finer weave than most quilting cottons and this means they are more fray resistant. They also are dyed right through, which means that any stray threads are less noticeable. Printed fabrics are usually white on the back, so frayed edges show this white and are more obvious. Using batik for raw edge appliqué is a good idea even if you are not a beginner. I have been appliquéing for much of my quilting career, and I only ever compromise on this point for one thing – if I can’t get a batik in the colour I want! Batiks reign supreme for raw edge appliqué. And I would have said this even if I had been refused for the 2018 Island Batik team!

Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

Don’t do the tiny details. Delete the butterfly’s spots, and the shine on the nose. Or add them with a few hand stitches instead.

Simplify the Bear

Remove the bear’s spiky hairstyle. You can find an altered pdf here that will allow you to make a bear with a smooth head (you will still need the original pdf file as well – available on this post). Add the beginners’ pages to the original pattern.

Change the Eyes

Substitute the appliquéd eyes for felt circles or buttons. Just promise me you won’t do this if you plan to gift the quilt to a child under 3 years old. Choking hazards should always be a primary consideration if you are making quilts for young children and babies. And always sew buttons on very securely and check them periodically. Drawing the eyes on with a permanent fabric texta is a good option if the quilt is for a very young child and you wish to avoid appliquéing the eyes. I have provided a positioning guide for the eyes in the beginners’ pdf if you choose to use buttons (or safety eyes).

buttons for eyes — I don’t have any really suitable buttons on hand today, but you could explore the huge variety of buttons out there for fantastic bear eyes.

Use a Normal Sewing Stitch, not Free Motion Stitching

Sew the appliqué down with a wide sewing machine stitch such as zigzag or blanket stitch. This should be relatively straightforward if you have removed the hair spikes and eliminated the impossibly small pieces. And sew slowly.

Take a deep breath and believe you can!

I think they are all the suggestions I would like to make. If you can think of more beginner’s tips please add them in the comments – that would be very helpful. 🙂

If you haven’t done a lot of raw edge appliqué before I hope you will still give the bears a go. It’s going to be a very fun quilt.

January 3, 2018January 19, 2024

UFO Attack January 2018

January 2018 monthly goal

OMG! OMG! OMG! My first One Monthly Goal for 2018 and my very exciting OMG moment!

Well, January 2018 has me looking forward to a lot of things.

But everything paled (briefly) in light of some great news I received this morning.

I got up to find an email waiting, saying that I have been accepted as an Island Batik Ambassador for 2018! To say that I’m excited about this is a huge understatement. I admire so many of last year’s ambassadors…. now I get to play along!

Island Batik Ambassador

Once I have calmed down a little, this is what January’s plans look like for me:

I have some secret sewing to do to finish the Blue Bear for the Beary Colourful BOM by February. But I can’t share that, because it is, well….. secret…. It is cute though, tee hee.
And I am joining in the Regatta Quilt sew along at Home Sewn by Us. But I can’t nominate that for my OMG, because it is supposed to be NO pressure. You can join us though. I am going to use a jelly roll that my good friend Romana gave me a loooong time ago. I have never settled on what to do with this jelly roll – it comes out, and goes away again periodically. Bu it will be great for this quilt. And it matches the colours in an old favourite t-shirt of my daughter’s which is now too small to wear and too damaged to pass on. She is sentimental about this shirt after having worn it to death. So I am going to use the pandas and the jelly roll scraps to make a throw pillow. to go with the quilt.

fabric precut — Here is the jelly roll that I am going to use for the Regatta Quilt and an old t-shirt of my daughter’s that is going to be the centre of a co-ordinating throw pillow.

And I have a UFO that I need to finish…. do you remember when I said I have 13 UFOs….. well, I did a bit of sorting in the sewing room yesterday, and that number has blown out to 15. Two UFOs I had completely forgotten about! But no matter, one of those only needs the binding finished. So I am going to fix that and gift it. But that’s not really a month-worthy goal, is it?

So, My One Monthly Goal for January

I have decided that I need to get on with one of my yearly goals right from the get-go. Which is to continue with some charity quilting. Since I currently have a charity quilt in my possession, I am going to nominate it as my January OMG. To be quilted, and the binding sewn on, by the 31st Jan!

pinned quilt — Apples and Roses and Autumn leaves charity quilt

That’s it! Short and Sweet. Tomorrow I will endeavour to get my recommendations to beginners regarding the Beary Colourful BOM posted. Then I am taking a well earned break. Til Tuesday I think. If you are new here – I normally only post here twice a week, three times if there is a lot going on….. but on the scale of “goings on”s, the Beary Colourful BOM has been huge! It will settle down soon.

What are you working on this month? Let us know at Elm Street Quilts by nominating a goal. You could win some fantastic prizes, and you will get some extra motivation to finish that project, or finish a step on a project. You can nominate as much or as little as you wish!

I am adding my link to Elm Street Quilts today. And I’m sharing on Freemotion by the River.

P.S. Have you checked out all the other bloggers on the Monthly Color Challenge Hop List yet?