Crazed Diamonds: Show and Tell Friday

Crazed Diamonds Victoriana tribute quilt by Dione Gardner-Stephen of Clever Chameleon

Another Successful and Fascinating Royal Adelaide Show

The Royal Adelaide Show is our State’s largest agricultural and horticultural show. It is also our biggest annual carnival with all the rides and show games. I’m a country girl by childhood, so I love the animal and farming parts of the show. I am also a crowd-hater, so the games and rides end of the showgrounds are not for me if I can help it. I really would prefer to pick my way through cow dung than buy fairy floss. Anyday.

But it is really the handicraft displays and other competitive arts that make me buy a ticket to The Show. Especially since I usually compete in the quilting and embroidery sections. I went to the Adelaide Show yesterday, and as always, I was taken with so many brilliant things. And I finally got some photos of my Crazed Diamonds quilt. Want to see?

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Shine Bright: an Island Batik quilt finish

Shine Bright quilt as a bed runner at Clever Chameleon

I was beginning to think this poor project was slightly cursed!

The advice on this beautiful little quilt reads “Shine Bright”. There were times, however I felt like it should have read more along the lines of “Burn, Sucker!”. haha In short; the quilt is finished and it is good. Actually, it’s really lovely. It is exactly what I wanted and needed. The journey, however, was blessed with a few unwanted twists and turns. The long version of the story goes as follows……

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Always Choose Tropical: Colour & Inspiration Tuesday

Always Choose Tropical colour scheme by Clever Chameleon

Always Choose Tropical

I am slowly working through a huge backlog of blog-relevant news and quilty happenings! I can’t believe July has been such a huge month, it certainly wasn’t forecast that way. Or maybe I just wasn’t paying attention! Anyway, we’re halfway in, and I still need to post two Love with a Twist patterns (aiming for one on Friday), an unboxing post for Island Batik (next week), and a number of other smaller things I’m messing around with.

But before all that, I really want to give you the lowdown on the Chameleon challenge quilt that I made for our recent Festival of Quilts, “Always Choose Tropical”. It was so much fun to make and show, so let’s do that now.

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Success at Festival of Quilts 2019

"Always Choose Tropical" chameleon quilt at the SA Festival of Quilts. By Dione Gardner-Stephen of Clever Chameleon

The Chameleon gets his 15 seconds of Fame!

The Chameleon will have to forgive me for taking so long to get around to making a chameleon quilt now, don’t you think? Not only did I make him a quilt FULL of cheeky chameleons, but I showed it in our local Festival of Quilts, and it won its category’s blue ribbon. That ought to keep him off my case for a while!

The weekend just gone was the annual Quilters’ Guild of South Australia’s Festival of Quilts. After judging, entrants who are successful get a specific invitation to the awards and opening ceremony, but no indication of the flavour of their award. Happily, happily, happily I got one of those calls. So I toddled off into the city centre on Friday morning to accept my prize.

Four competitive ribbons

Turned out, it was four prizes, one for each quilt I entered. I had dared hope that the chameleon quilt would place, because I put my all into that one. Anything that wasn’t perfect on that project met Mr Ripper, pronto. But two of the other ribbons were pleasant surprises, and the third was more of a very pleasant shock.

If you will indulge my excitement for one post, I will show you what I entered in our annual quilt show and what I was awarded. Two of the awarded quilts were made primarily for this blog in the past year, so I hope you will also accept my thanks for reading and giving me a reason to make more quirky quilts. 🙂

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Show and Tell Friday

Royal Adelaide Show handicrafts

Show and Tell Day! Lots of show-standard handicraft eye-candy, the winners from my Island Batik blog hop contest revealed and a quilted postcard all in one glorious crafty post today!

I haven’t had any sewing time this week, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been super busy with lots of things quilt and craft related. Join me today in congratulating the clever winners who named my dragonfly quilt on my stop of the Island Batik Great Outdoors blog hop. See the postcard mini-quilt I sent Jeanette for her win from our Teddy Bear’s Picnic. And also lots of pictures of fun and diverse handicrafts at the annual show of the Royal Agricultural & Horticultural Society of South Australia . Grab a coffee and come with me to the Royal Adelaide Show!

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