Craft Room Destash Challenge – Project 70273

Project 70273 middling quilt

From the Sewing Room – Project 70273 and a Destash Challenge

Second month into 2108, and I’m still committed to destashing some of my fabrics. 🙂 It definitely helps to have a little motivation from Megan at C’mon Get Crafty and her Monthly Destash Challenge.  In fact, my destashing has become even more important, now that I have had a significant influx of fabrics from Island Batik. If you missed the opening of my first Ambassador box yesterday, you might want to take a squiz. I am over the moon with the collection of quilting supplies they sent me to play with!

Anyway, back to the destashing….. For last month’s challenge I used up most of my red fabric scraps making appliqué hearts. I also made a quilt top for these hearts to go onto, all out of stash. So I have actually used a measurable amount of stash so far. Great!

The hearts quilt project is on the backburner for now, but I must admit, I am very pleased with it. I expect I will progress it along again soon. However, for this month’s destash I am showing you something different. A much smaller project that is also part of a much bigger project – one that you might like to think about getting involved with too. 

Continue reading “Craft Room Destash Challenge – Project 70273”

Everyday Quilt Inspiration: Sentimental Scraps

Sentimental scraps clock31 Days of Finding Quilt Inspiration in Real Life

One thing that most quilters do is save their scraps for another project down the line. But if those scraps aren’t sufficient for another quilt, yet have strong sentimental value, it can be hard to decide to do with them. So what do you do? Move them on? Throw them away? Or make something entirely different with them?

Today, for my 31 Days of Everyday Quilt Inspiration challenge, I want to  share with you the story of a quilted clock, inspired from all sorts of sentimental scraps and inherited notions.

Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday: Day 23

Sentimental scraps and fake flowers

There once was a fabric off-cut amongst my collection that I didn’t want to part with.  It was left over from a project (not actually a quilt) that I did for a friend who now lives overseas and whom I miss very much. I decided that my sewing room needed a clock, and that this special black and white batik should be the background.

There were also a stack of fake flowers left in my mother’s belongings that I couldn’t quite commit to throwing away. I am not a “fake flowers sort of person”, but I know she enjoyed decorating her last residential unit very much. So I pulled the flowers to pieces so I could sew with them.

fake flowers amongst my sentimental scraps
One of the deconstructed tiger lilies from my Mum with a bell centre.

Sentimental trinkets and real flowers from my love

Also among my mother’s things was a brand new wooden frame. It framed a print I know she loved, but it was never destined to hang in my or my siblings’ homes. It never even got to hang in her home – it was still in it’s wrapper. So I pulled that to pieces too.

In my own things I always have ribbon scraps from flowers my hubby buys me. He knows that if he buys me flowers regularly I don’t immediately get suspicious if he suddenly starts. This avoids questions like “What have you done this time?!”. Hahahaha. High IQ has my hubby.

Sentimental scraps quilted clock
I echoed the tiger lily with bobbin work and hand embroidery. I think this is my favourite part asthetically.

Acquired supplies and new techniques

Also among my own things was a very heavy blue thread that I bought secondhand from a class instructor because she was downsizing her thread collection. And I had just learned bobbin work….. So I added a ghost tiger lily to the background.

Sentimental scraps quilted clock
The bright blue button was among my inherited button collections.

More sentimental notions and hoarded items

The bright blue button was languishing in one of the button collections I have inherited along the way. It spoke to me as the new centre for the deconstructed white tiger lily.

There was also a bell among my buttons. It came from one of my previous cats’ collars. My indoors-only cats have no need for bells, so I tend to remove them and stash them away for later. Bit of a magpie, me. 

Sentimental scraps quilted clock
I constructed the clock face with two layers of glass and satin stitched over coloured slivers of fabric to make the numerals and hour marks.

Easing my conscience over unused supplies

Finally, I needed to find a way to mark out the clock face without obscuring the batik fabric that I was trying to honour. In my USOs (un-started objects!!) I (still) have a sample of a fabric called “glass”. It is like an ultra-fine tulle. I bought it to try it in shadow trapunto. That was years ago…. and I only just got around to trying shadow trapunto last month. But not with the glass yet. Anyway, two layers of this, fused over the batik, gave just the right degree of opaqueness. 

I bought the clock parts especially for this project and made the clock face size to match.

purple clever chameleon logo

I agonised how to put all this together for a long time. Shuffled my sentimental scraps and notions around many times. In the end though, I was happy with the result. I know some of my friends think it is a bit odd. But I actually don’t care. This piece is for me. 🙂 They were my sentimental scraps, after all.

See you again tomorrow for another round of Colour Inspiration Tuesday. Thanks for reading!

Trapunto Homework and FMQ Practice

Dream Big Mini-quiltDoing My Handiquilter Group Trapunto Homework

If you have been following for a little while, you may remember that I have been attending monthly local Handiquilter group meetings at the Adelaide Sewing Centre. I really like these meetings because they expose me to different techniques and give me a semi-hard-deadline to try them before the next meeting. This past two months we have been looking at trapunto.

The meeting before last, Heather talked about trapunto in general. Then last month she upped the ante by talking about shadow trapunto. This is fantastic, because I first discovered shadow trapunto on the internet years ago, and put it on my to-do list. Where it sadly stayed ever since. Until now.

I was pretty pleased that the next month or two’s worth of homework is something I have always wanted to try. But of course, time slips away and the next meeting is looming very large, so today and yesterday I have been madly going trapunto! 🙂

Dream Big Trapunto

Researching my Trapunto Homework

A few months ago, I also discovered an amazing quilting blog by Geta Grama. If you are not familiar with this blog, you are definitely missing out. I highly recommend that you check it out (Hey, not just yet! – when you are finished here!! ;)).

What’s more, I discovered Geta Grama about the same time Heather announced that we were going to be looking at trapunto for the next few months. And, guess what Geta does a lot of? That’s right! Trapunto! So ever since, I have had one of Geta’s tutorials earmarked. Now I am having a crack at it, and here’s how it went….

Where to get this Trapunto Pattern

The first thing you need to know is where to find the patterns and tutorials if you would like to try this project. The design is by Geta Grama and is available for free download (it will cost you an email address). She also has a free tutorial on her trapunto method and recommended tools, so even if you aren’t wanting to do this particular project, I would still urge you to take a look.

How I made Geta’s Trapunto Mini-Quilt.

After downloading Geta’s “Dream Big” file, I printed the pdf (4 pages) and stuck them together…. this went without a hitch. Now, here’s where I started to deviate from the script. I don’t currently own a working wash-out marking pen, and they make me nervous anyway. So, I traced the lettering onto greaseproof paper and layered this over white cotton quilting fabric and 200gsm (30mm) polyester wadding. I immediately wished I had opted for the thinner polyester batting, as the fat wadding didn’t fit very well under my sewing machine foot. It probably wouldn’t have been such an issue if I had just marked the fabric rather than trying to use baking paper, so perhaps I shall have to remember to buy a washout pen next time I am shopping.

Anyway, with a little care, I managed to sew around the lettering without losing the baking paper. I used soluble thread on the top and ordinary bobbin thread underneath.

Dream Big on paper sewn to batting
“Dream Big” sewn onto fabric and polyester batting
Dream Big from the back
“Dream Big” sewn into polyester batting (from the back)

Then came the bit that has always put me off trapunto. The cutting away of the excess polyester batting. I hate the thought of nicking the top fabric or the stitching holding it all together. Just to cut out this little project took me an hour, and I did accidentally cut the stitching once. It promptly started coming undone quite badly, so I re-sewed the loose part straight away. Thankfully I didn’t nick the top fabric at any point. At this point I was pretty sure that trapunto is not for me. Too stressful for a hobby!!!

Dream Big trapunto cut out
“Dream Big” trapunto cut away from excess batting.

I will  note here that I should have read Geta’s tutorial more thoroughly before I started. She says starching your fabric really stiff helps keep the fabric from getting accidentally snipped. I’ll have to try that next time. If there is a next time….. see, I am warming to the idea.

Putting the Quilt Together

Once I had the trapunto prepared, I layered it over another two layers of bamboo/cotton blend batting (that’s what I had at hand) and put white fabric on the back. I used two layers because I read on Karen’s quilt blog that this will give you better quilting definition and more texture. I wanted to give this a go, and there’s nothing like killing two birds with one stone.

Then I traced the innermost heart shape onto more greaseproof paper and positioned it over the quilt sandwich using the lettering as a guide to placement. I stitched the outline of the heart in white thread and removed the paper.

heart stitched around trapunto
Marking the boundary of the innermost heart with stitching.

Then I filled in the heart around the lettering with micro stippling and finished off the letters and heart outlines by going around them twice. I used variegated Wonderfill cotton thread for the micro stippling and Robison-Anton rayon for the outlines. The Robison-Anton shreds too easily in my Sweet 16, although I never had any problems with it in my domestic machine. I personally prefer Madeira rayon in my Sweet 16. However, the colour was the decider from the threads I had on hand, so I just persisted through the inevitable broken thread episodes.

Dream Big heart finished
Micro-stippling allows the trapunto to really pop out.

Quilting the background

The original pattern from Geta Grama was finished off with some simple echo quilting. But never one to stick to a pattern, I had to mess with it. Besides, I am always looking for ways to increase my quilting practice without increasing my number of projects. So, I drew up a slightly altered echo quilting plan and filled in the first concentric heart with half feathers. By this stage I was having fun. There will probably be a next time after all. 

Dream Big with echo quilting
“Dream Big” trapunto with echo quilting.

Then I decided to complete the feathers rather than repeating the half feathers and alternate the feathers with other designs. I started with pebbles, but my bobbin ran out. Which was fortuitous because I decided I didn’t like the pebbles after all and ripped them out.

Quilting the Dream big trapunto
Here are the pebbles I started before ripping them out.

In the end, I decided to fill in the gaps between the feathers with micro-stippling. It seemed better to keep the number of design elements to a minimum.

Micro-stippling and feathers
Micro-stippling combined with feathers between the echo quilting.

Finally I decided  that I liked the extra white space left at this point, so I actually didn’t fill in the last few sections with dense quilting. So the project finally ended up looking like this:

Dream big quilt, quilting finished

Dream big trapunto close up

Blue Clever Chameleon logo

When I get this mini-quilt bound I will show you. I have also been playing with some shadow trapunto with felt on a cushion that I will post soon, possibly with a tutorial. Remember, if you’d like to give this Dream Big trapunto project a go, visit Geta’s Quilting Studio.

Don’t forget to follow this blog for regular quilt inspiration and tips. You can follow me by email, RSS feed or on Bloglovin’.

I’d love to see how you personalise this project. If you make it, let us know, and tell Geta how much you appreciate the pattern.

P.S. Here are my recommended finds on the internet this week:
Geta’s Quilting Studio blog
Karen’s Quilts: 2016 Free Motion Quilt Along
Create a Card Project on C&T Publishing blog – I am teaching my 9yo daughter to sew at the moment, so all relevant ideas are on my radar lately! Visit for a chance to win a copy of The Best of Sewing Machine Fun for Kids, 2nd Ed.

P.P.S. Also, don’t forget to check out the upcoming Art with Fabric blog at Tweety Loves Quilting.

Art with Fabric blog hop @ tweloquilting.blogspot.com

 

P.P.P.S And finally, linking up with these favourite Linky Parties this week:
Free Motion MavericksFree Motion by the River
Quilt FabricationSew Fresh QuiltsMy Quilt Infatuation, The Inquiring Quilter,
Crazy Mom Quilts, Busy Hands Quilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Don’t forget to check out these links for this weeks quilt happenings around the web!

Free-Motion Quilting Decisions and a Printed Panel

teddy bear printed panel enhanced with free-motion quiltingFrom the Sewing Room: Printed Panels and Free-Motion Quilting.

I have been free-motion quilting for a while now. It’s probably 4 years or so since I crawled out of my ditch and started being more adventurous in this way. 😉 But I have just discovered something that I wish I had thought of right at the beginning!  And that something is pre-printed fabric panels.

Yes, I knew they existed….. But I have been a patchwork and appliqué snob and I have shunned them. Because I didn’t appreciate the benefits of putting my patchwork aside for a bit and developing my free-motion skills in a way that would let me put all my focus into the free-motion quilting part of a project. And this week I learnt a thing or two. Because I was forced to quilt a pre-printed panel….. and I liked it!

Got my free-motion quilting up and going again

Ice-cream Tones color scheme from Clever ChameleonThis week I have been concentrating on colour boards and  fabric mosaics, triggered by the Summer Crush contest from Stitched in Color. This resulted in 4 colour blog posts and was a lot of fun, but left much less time for sewing than usual. So, to stay happy and in touch with my sewing room, I pulled out a quick project that I have been avoiding a little. My next charity quilt.

The next charity quilt on my list was a child’s printed panel. It was all pinned and ready to go, but it just wasn’t going. Partly because I was out of the mindset of quilting because I have been sewing tumbling blocks patchwork lately instead. Partly because I had no idea what pattern to quilt on it. And a big partly because it will go to a very sick baby with seriously stressed out parents. I have been that parent in the past, and I didn’t want to think about it. All these things added up to a serious lack of momentum.

Teddy bears charity quilt
My latest charity quilt – a teddy bear panel

But I wanted to take a show-and-tell to my next Handiquilter Club meeting on Friday, so I fired up the Sweet Sixteen and got started. I knew I needed to outline the main motifs of the print. I knew I wanted hearts in the aqua border and I knew I wanted some texture contrast between the sections, but I didn’t know what.

When you don’t know where to start, start with what you know

It is my experience that ideas flow better when you are creating rather than thinking. So I started. I outlined the big bears in brown. Then I outlined the little bears and balloons in white by travelling around the inside of the string of motifs and then the outside. Once I had done this I decided to add free-motion quilting in the area between the aqua border and the balloons in a motif I know well. I did loop-de-loops, with the occasional little heart thrown in. That went quite well.

Loop-de-loop free-motion quilting with hearts
Looping stipple free-motion quilting with hearts

I hope you can see the quilting…. it is there mostly for texture. Here’s a diagram of the basic idea….

loops and hearts
Loops and hearts quilting plan

Now my confidence was up. I removed a stack of pins, which made the quilt easier to handle and also look better. And I recognised that the memories of my baby being in hospital in intensive care upset me less when I was working on the quilt than when I was anticipating working on it. Of course, thinking about the thinking was worse than the thinking! Anyway, at this point I felt inspired to fill the background with straight lines to show off the bears.

Straight line quilting to produce diamond grid
Straight line quilting to produce diamond grid in background of quilt.

The print has a grid of yellow and aqua flowers and I considered joining the flowers to form a diamond grid. But then I decided to make the flowers the centre of each diamond by quilting straight lines between them. I marked the lines with a hera marker (I am seriously scared of marking white quilts with wash-out pens). Then I free-motion quilted the lines in white thread. I wish I had a quilting ruler….. and knew how to use it! But I got by.

Hearts in the border – testing a new free-motion quilting motif

About the only thing I knew right from when I first unfolded this little quilt for a first look, was that I wanted to do a heart motif in the aqua-coloured border. 

A browse through my Quilting to Admire and Inspire board on Pinterest turned up a useful idea. It is this double heart leaf vine motif from Lori Kennedy. 

double heart leaf vine from Lori Kennedy
Double heart leaf vine motif from Lori Kennedy’s blog, The Inbox Jaunt.

I didn’t want the extra petals inside the hearts, and I had to decide how I was going to turn the corners, but this was a great launching place. Thanks Lori! The design I settled on after several drafts looked like this.

heart border doodle
How I eventually decided to turn the corners with the Heart Vine motif

I used chalk to place guidelines on the quilt top.

Here is the border quilted onto the baby quilt.

hearts border free-motion quilting motif
My hearts border free-motion quilting motif

I finished the long ends of the quilt with straight parallel lines to the edges, cut off the excess and sewed the binding onto the front of the quilt. The binding will be finished by hand by another quilter. I hope this little quilt does a little good in a bad situation. ♥♥♥

Clever Chameleon logo in blueMaybe next time I might go into more details on my thoughts of why I should have started quilting fabric panels a long time ago. And one reason I can think of as to why I didn’t. What is your experience of pre-printed “quilt tops”? Let me know in the comments below!

Until we chat again, go Quilt Your Own Story!

P.S. The follow-up blog post, where I did actually get around to arranging my thoughts on printed quilt panels, is here: 7 reasons to Quilt Printed Fabric Panels.

P.P.S. Linking up this week with The Quilting Room with Mel. Visit the linky party for more great new projects on the web this week.

Clever Chameleon Blog Welcome

Hello and Welcome!

Stepping Out: textile art by Dione Gardner-Stephen. Girl made of geoweb, with zipper, found on the Clever Chameleon blog.
Stepping out into the world wide web!

Clever Chameleon Steps Out

Welcome to the launch of a long-held dream! My all new Clever Chameleon blog and website is a  patchwork and quilt design resource, focused on helping you make your quilts most truly your own. Whether you waYellow and orange chameleon magnet with wobbly eyesnt to find a new pattern, design a pattern, change a pattern or add to a pattern, The Clever Chameleon blog will offer you ideas to give you confidence on your next textile journey. As I explore all sorts of techniques to expand my skills, I will share my journey with you – my quilt story to empower yours.

As my blog expands you  will find:

Why the Clever Chameleon blog?

Improvisational quilt That's Pants by Dione Gardner-Stephen
A quilt made from another quilter’s scraps and then gifted to that person is just one example of a very powerful gift!

Chameleons are one of the best known colour-change-artists. But did you know that that they use colour as a social signal? And that these signals affect other chameleons around them?!  It strikes me that quilters are like this too. We can convey mood and message in our work, through choices of colour, pattern and form. Quilts and textile art pieces convey love, happiness, comfort, thanks, memories, fun and many other things through our design choices. We express ourselves – and in doing so, affect others around us. The clever quilter knows the power of the quilt, and plans their project for the biggest impact. After all (and I’m sure I don’t need to tell you) – quilts are expensive and time consuming to make. So we might as well get the most value for our efforts, right?! Absolutely!

We can all create

So accordingly, the Clever Chameleon blog is a collection of my ideas. thoughts and experiences around designing, embellishing and personalising quilts and textile crafts, laid out especially for you to draw from. I love designing my own work, and I am usually drawn to strong colours and contrasts. So expect plenty of brightness.! I enjoy watching my kids design their own makings and seeing the joy that this brings them. Conversely, I feel disappointed when I hear people say that they don’t do art because they feel that they can’t “draw/create/do art like ….. (insert your favourite excuse here)”. I believe that we CAN all definitely create awesome stuff that makes us joyful on the inside and is meaningful to us or an intended recipient. Some of us may even turn out to be Picasso’s; who knows?! Let’s create joyfully like children before they get bogged down in self-consciousness.

Child's drawing of a house and family
Home is where the art is. Children don’t hold back on their creativity and neither should you!

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” – Pablo Picasso

I also like writing and teaching ….. so on this blog I am going to gather my thoughts and link in some great resources about improving your quilts and making them truly yours and truly awesome, in the hope that you might learn something that you wanted to know. Maybe even things you didn’t know that you want to know……

Clever Chameleon LogoLearn and Connect

If you hang around here, be prepared to catch the urge to design and personalise your own quilts to make them special. Let me know what topics you’d like to cover. Learn to Colour Your Mood. Let your quilts Brighten Your World. And always Quilt Your Own Story!