Mallee Ringneck Parrot: Colour Inspiration Tuesday and Linky Party

Mallee Ringneck Parrot color scheme from Clever Chameleon

Hello!! We are back safely from the Outback.

Which means I have internet and phone coverage again. And that means that I will be slowly catching up on all your lovely comments and seeing what everyone else has been doing on their blogs recently. Being off grid is nice for a while, but quilting is really quite a socially centred pursuit, don’t you think?

The technical isolation of the Outback does have an upside…. for me, heading bush is a time of mental clearing, and of gathering fresh inspiration. Space and time to think and muse over possibilities. Usually quilted ones. 🙂 Arkaroola is especially good for this, being so ruggedly beautiful, and also a bit of a magnet for artistic and inventive people. You never know who you will meet there and what you might learn.

Art class in Arkaroola
What is going on here?! Photo of herself with my boy supplied by Michele Lane.

Want to know who I met on this trip and what we did? Of course you do! 🙂

While we were at Arkaroola this time, we were lucky enough to meet Michele Lane, a visual artist who specialises in print making. She was super generous with her time and resources, running a workshop on Nature Printing for the visiting kids last Saturday. 

Learning Print Making with Michele

My kids had a great time learning how to ink up leaves and feathers to make prints.

Inking nature materials
Inking the nature samples
inked leaves and feathers
Arranging the inked leaves and feathers onto an aluminium plate to make a pleasing pattern.

 

pressing the print through roller press
We made a sandwich with the plate, inked samples, wet paper and several padding layers. Then we sent it through the press.

The press is named Geoffrey. Many of us name our sewing machines, so I figured, who’s to judge?! Geoffrey it is. Anyway, by the end of the workshop, the kids had invented a whole persona for Geoffrey. Of particular note; apparently he is cranky without his morning coffee…… hilarious!

Leaf and feather ink print
Here is my daughter’s first print.
leaf ink print
And my son’s first print.

After printing directly from their nature materials, the kids learned to make silhouette prints.

Inked plate
First you ink up your aluminium plate.  Then lay leaves, bark and feathers on top.

Nature prints

When the print is made, this time the paper is protected from the ink where the nature samples are. This gives you empty silhouettes. Then we wondered ……what would happen if we removed the leaves and feathers and printed the plates again? This gave us a fascinating print of the protected ink from the first run. Here are my daughter’s prints, the silhouette print on the bottom and the protected ink  print above it.

This workshop made me remember how much I had enjoyed printing in high school. And that I once purchased a gel plate I have never got around to playing with….. Oh look! A squirrel!! hahahaha. Don’t worry, I won’t likely be fabric printing anytime soon….. you’ll see why in a minute.

But first, don’t you want to meet that little Yellow-Footed Rock Wallaby I left you for at the end of my last post? You were seriously out-cuted by this……

yellow-footed rock wallaby
Kaytoo, the Yellow-Footed Rock Wallaby. Awwwwww.
yellow-footed rock wallaby
Isn’t he beautiful?!

Kaytoo is about half grown and has been released into the wild. But because there is so little food available, due to a serious lack of rain, he still returns to the home where he was reared for food pellets in the evenings. He has started bringing his wild family with him now too.

yellow-footed rock wallabies

They were very nervous to have us watching, and bolted away every time I moved the camera. Yellow-Footed Rock Wallabies are naturally very shy and timid, much more so than kangaroos. But they kept coming back, because the food scarcity is already pretty severe.  We left them to their free dinner and headed back to our accomodation for our last night away. That’s when we spotted a pair of Mallee Ringneck Parrots eating mistletoe berries. The Chameleon digs the colours!

Mallee Ringnecked parrot

This was the view back to our accomodation as we walked down.

Arkaroola in late afternoon
Late afternoon view back down into Arkaroola Village.

I hope you are getting the idea why artists love this place!

But this family of artists has now had to return to reality. We are now home again after  12 hours on the road. I have to admit my kids are pretty amazing on long drives, especially since their entertainment options are limited to activities that don’t make them motion sick.

My own little Christmas in July waiting at home!

And guess what arrived while I was out bush? My next supply of Island Batik fabric and other goodies for use in my role as an Island Batik Ambassador. It actually arrived the day after we left home. Oh how tortuous it was, to know it was sitting in a post office walking distance from home, but 700km away. 

Island Batik supplies in a box

Want to see what’s inside? Sure ….. but me first! (Actually I’ve already peeped, but you totally knew that didn’t you?!)  I’ll prepare a post for you to see all the goodies in there very very soon, I promise!

In the meantime, let’s have a look at what the little-bit-dusty and travel-weary Chameleon has chosen to feature from last week’s linky party.

Last Week’s Link Up Features

Bobbis chameleonBobbi at Snowy Days Quilting added not one, but two ripper posts to the linky party last week. Firstl, she has finished her On Ringo Lake quilt. That in itself deserves a round of applause.

On Ringo Lake by Bobbi

Then in a second post, which is actually for the Fall into a Quilt Along, she explains how to  adjust the scale of any block. What a helpful little post – you might want to bookmark that one.

Claires chameleonClaire at knitNkwilt shared the process behind a recent group quilt she participated in. I was wowed at the idea, because I can see how fantastic this idea would be for groups with participants of a wide range of sewing abilities. Ordinarily, variations in block sizes can cause grief in finishing a group quilt – but not this one…. being all improv means everyone’s efforts are equally useful. Fantastic!

Group quilt at KnitNKwilt

Jeanettes chameleonAnd here is a quilt top that Jeannette has made for herself, shared via Instagram @quilted_collie. I think I should probably quit whinging about all the pinwheels in my mystery quilt after I have seen Jeannette’s project! Head over to @quilted_collie to find out what makes this quilt special to Jeannette.

Jeannettes quilt

I hope you will visit today’s great features. And my sincerest thanks to everyone who linked up last week – I really appreciated the heads up on your posts after having been away. If you were featured you can find a badge of honour here.

blue Clever Chameleon logoNow it’s your turn to share. Link up to this week’s Chameleon’s Colour party!

What are you working on, or have recently finished in your sewing room? Link up a blog post, a Flicker pic, 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.

Guidelines (more detail here):

  • Link up your latest or recent quilt excitement. All construction stages welcome.
  • You have 100 characters in the link description…. tell us who you are and what your fantastic project is.
  • URLs are not necessary to link up…. non-bloggers 100% welcome!
  • Do you use muted/pastel/low volume colours? Fantastic….. the Chameleon wants to see Everything, not just the bright stuff!
  • Do it now……. before you forget! 

[inlinkz_linkup id=790237 mode=1]

P.S. Here’s some extra fun for you from the internet:

The Sew Early 4 Christmas blog hop continued yesterday at Threading My Way. Pam has organised you a tutorial to make this sweet little gift bag with a divider, perfect for nail polish and other small items.

nail polish gift bag

And Fall into a Quilt Along continues, with acorn blocks from Kathleen at Kathleen McMusing. This post particularly caught my eye because Kathleen shared a new-to-me technique called “Split Appliqué”. I had heard of pieced appliqué before, but hadn’t come across split appliqué. I love adding ideas to my repertoire, and if you do too, this one’s worth a read. 🙂

acorn split appliqué block

Enjoy!


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!

6 Replies to “Mallee Ringneck Parrot: Colour Inspiration Tuesday and Linky Party”

  1. Gorgeous pictures, I wish I were there. Janice Paine Dawes prints on and hand dyes fabric. If you enjoy printing and I know you like fabric you should check out her blog.

  2. Thanks for mentioning the acorn blocks! You look like you had a fab time on vacation! It’s good to unplug but does take time to catch up.

  3. Hi Dione, sounds like a great family trip. It’s the middle of a very hot summer here and I’m really craving a vacation. With no plans, I’m vacationing vicariously through everyone else’s travel 🙂
    It’s great that you kids like the printing….maybe they will be the reason to take out your printing stuff eventually! Enjoy your batiks.

  4. Thanks for your kind comments. I would love to see the outback of Australia some day! The kids seemed to have fun and I am sure it was nice to get away. Can’t wait to see what you make with your next box of batiks-fun, fun!

  5. Hi Dione,
    How fascinating the fabric print making is, and nice that she was able to instruct the kids. They picked some great choices – I really love the feather and the pattern that your son chose. Very COOL. Aww, those Wallabys are so darn cute – that is funny that he brought his friends along for feeding! I would too if food was so scarce. Happy Happy Wednesday. ~smile~ Roseanne

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