It’s the day for the last bear of the Beary Colourful BOM and we are going out with much fanfare. Make way for the Black and White (Panda) Bear of Making Music!
The first of December and time to be looking forward to all the festivities of Christmas and New Year. Time for parades and lights and decorations and special foods and music. And what better way to express joy in black and white than with music?!
Don’t let this month’s colours fool you – Black and White Bear is in the mood for celebration! He is going to party long and loud, and everyone’s invited! Brass band big, that’s his ideal…. his birthplace (Adelaide, SA) has one of the biggest Christmas pageants in the world and he is all set to be next year’s opening act! Please welcome the very formal yet joyous Black and White Bear of Making Music to the Beary Colourful family. He’s expecting much applause!
The twelfth and last bear in the Beary Colourful Quilt BOM series is hoping you have found much joy in this pattern series. Add this bear to your collection to kickstart your Christmas/holiday season. And then go check out the rest of the 2018 Monthly Color Challenge posts for other ideas of how to celebrate black and white colours and enter for December’s Monthly Color Challenge prize.
Have you noticed how an absence of colour can bring out the drama and depth in a picture or design?
And emphasise all the details? I am one of the biggest colour lovers out there, but I also recognise that colour can sometimes be a distraction from the other features of a fantastic design.
Seeing something in black and white really helps to distil the important elements out of a picture, don’t you think? What is it about the subject that makes its form distinctive and recognisable? Where are the contrasts and shadows that give the subject that “wow factor”? How can I use those features in my next quilt design?
A Trip to the Art Gallery – Of course you’d expect some quilt inspiration there!
My daughter has been itching to go to the SA State Art Gallery again for a while. And I’m always up for a trip to an art gallery. Especially now that I’m always on the alert for a quilt design inspiration or two.Yesterday was a public holiday, so we grabbed the opportunity for some rare “Mummy and Me” time. Let me show you what we found. 🙂
One Monthly Goal Check-in and December 2017 Roundup
At the beginning of December I nominated my ongoing Vanuatu Turtle Quilt for my specific One Monthly Goal at Elm Street Quilts. The finished quilt is not due to be linked up at Busy Hands Quilts’ Splash of Color quilt along until January 16. But I know that quilt construction has a habit of expanding to take up all available time. And I want the Vanuatu Turtle quilt done so that I can get on with some other really interesting projects in January. So I decided to bring the “deadline” forward to the 31st December.
So, I am glad to report that the Vanuatu Turtle is finished! 🙂 It measures 60″ square.
Thank you to my dearest husband who eventually managed to help me get this photo under natural light.
I think I may have an opening for a new quilt holder-upperer ….. at first DH was holding this quilt not only upside down but also back-to-front. I honestly thought he was just being facetious……. But, apparently, no. And he swears he reads the blog…..
I took the opportunity to get a photo of the back of the Vanuatu Turtle quilt (upside down, but who’s to know?!)
So there we have it. A finished memento from our family’s work trip to Vanuatu. I’m thankful to Myra of Busy Hands Quilts for running the Splash of Color quit along this year, as without it, the Vanuatu Turtle Quilt would likely never have happened. It would still be like the throw quilt I mean to make from some fabrics I bought in Thailand 3 years ago….
The Vanuatu Quilt – blow by blow
If you’d like to go back and read about the conception, design and construction of the Vanuatu Turtle quilt, here are the relevant posts in order:
I said I was going to find out what being finished early feels like. So. What does it feel like to be done before the last minute? Weird. And slightly sad – I have liked working on this quilt and now it’s over. Perhaps the gasping sense of relief of going down to the wire has its upsides after all! hahahaha. Don’t worry, the melancholy hasn’t lasted – I have so many other projects to turn to. I have already done some therapy fabric cutting today. And not on the project I should be working on either. See, that’s better!
What else happened at Clever Chameleon in December 2017?
Well, we had another 4 Colour Inspiration Tuesdays.
Week 1
We explored the colours of a fake-looking Australian plant called the Wax Flower Plant or Hoya. And we used it as a launch point for a Christmas decoration made of couched thread and beads. Not strictly quilting, but it is a method I use for embellishing quilts, and these ornaments are a good way to get your hand in with this technique.
This post was a full tutorial, and showed how to make Christmas Trees and Christmas Bells as well.
Week 2
In the second week of December, Kathy of Tamarack Shack Longarm Quilting shared a tip about chalk being visible under blacklight. So I got all excited and the testing of this tip resulted in a blue colour scheme.
And I received my own blacklight for Christmas. So now I can play with this technique some more. Sweet husbands who can’t tell the front of a quilt from the back still have their uses. hahahahaha. Thanks dearest!
Week 3
I was reading the newsletter from our local state Botanic Garden when I discovered the strangest flower I have possibly ever seen. This flower quacks me up, so I had to feature it on Colour Inspiration Tuesday!
I would like to have the time to turn this flower into an appliqué at some point. Just for fun. The flying duck shape of this Australian native orchid is just the start of the strangeness – you can read more about this flower here.
Week 4
This was only yesterday – and we celebrated the colour red in all its glory. This is because we are leading up to the 2018 Monthly Color Challenge. And the first colour off the rank will be red.
What else happened at Clever Chameleon in December 2017? Well, lots of Vanuatu Turtle quilt construction, but we’ve already covered that. Probably the only thing of note we haven’t covered is that the Vanuatu Turtle quilting post includes a mini tutorial on how to freemotion quilt hibiscus flowers.
I also extended the couched thread Christmas Ornament tutorial to include a fourth variation – a glittery bauble. This was a guest post on Days Filled with Joy blog.
So, that was December 2017. And this is my 100th post since I started blogging back on the 26th April. It seems very fitting to be able to report a complete quilt finish for my 100th post!
Oh boy, the things I have learned since I launched this blog! And all the amazing people I have “met”! Thank you to all of you for reading my blog and a special thank you to all the people who have connected in some way. I hope that 2018 is going to be a year of great things!
P.S. In the next few days I also hope to also be participating in several end of year linkys. In particular, Cheryl of Meadow in the Mist is holding a Best of 2017 Linky Party. You might like to head over there now. A collection of the year’s best quilt blog posts ought to be really good reading! And there are several other goal-setting linkys for 2018 which I’d like to sit down and muse over if I can find the time.
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!
Vanuatu Turtle Appliqué Finished! – A Splash of Color Quilt-Along Update
Done! My Splash of Color Quilt-Along quilt top is constructed. The red border strip is added, the piano key borders are on, and the Vanuatu Turtle appliqué is laid out and stitched down. Both layers. Happy days!
The last time I formally up-dated you on this quilt for the Splash of Color quilt-along, I had all the major pieces constructed and the centre blocks pieced into one unit.
Then I decided this quilt needed a little push to get it done on time and out the way of some other projects. So I nominated it as my One Monthly Goal for my link up with Elm Street Quilts. By that point I had finished constructing the pieced part of the quilt top and had fused down the aqua turtle appliqué pieces.
Since then, I have been working very hard on this project. And now I have finished sewing down the aqua Vanuatu Turtle appliqué layer, fused on the red overlay and just this morning, finished sewing that down too! So, that means my quilt top is finished. 🙂
The current link-up for the Splash of Color quilt-along at Busy Hands Quilts requires that I have a finished flimsy quilt top to enter. So we are good to go! With 19 hours to spare! As I pointed out in my One Monthly Goal post, this last minute thing really has got to be wound back a little……
Vanuatu Turtle Appliqué Progress and Process
Anyway, I thought you might like to see some pics of the progress between the last update and the finished top, so here are the highlights.
Stitching down the first layer of the Vanuatu Turtle appliqué.Aqua layer of the Vanuatu turtle appliqué finishedLaying out the red Vanuatu Turtle Appliqué piecesAt the moment, my go-to appliqué technique is raw edge appliqué. Fast and furious for busy mums! I free-motion straight stitch around the edge of each piece 4-5 times to secure them well for everyday use.This morning…. mild relief as I hit the last appliqué piece.Finished!
Here’s the back. I simply use the batting as the stabiliser for my raw edge appliqué when I can, so currently this quilt has the top and batting layers but no backing.
The back of my raw edge appliqué
Next job…. piece a backing and get this quilted. Any suggestions on a quilting motif? I think perhaps some sort of large simple swirl/wave curl pattern in grey might be in order. I certainly don’t want to add to the complexity of this quilt any further.
Have you seen the other completed quilt tops in Myra’s Splash of Color Quilt-Along? I have enjoyed this exercise immensely and I’m going to get a finished quilt to keep…… Not something that happens at my house very often. I only Start quilts to keep. I usually Finish quilts to give away! Anyone else out there with this problem?!! I suspect I am in good company…… let me know. 🙂
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!
This post was a full tutorial, and showed how to make Christmas Trees and Christmas Bells as well.
Next job…. piece a backing and get this quilted. Any suggestions on a quilting motif? I think perhaps some sort of large simple swirl/wave curl pattern in grey might be in order. I certainly don’t want to add to the complexity of this quilt any further.