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Lunarcy Quilt: Year of the Ox Block Release Day (Final installment)

Happy New Year! Happy Lunar New Year that is, wished for you for this coming Friday – the 12th of February 2021. Holy cow, it’s goodbye Year of the Rat 2020 and heeeelloooo Year of the Ox!

Why all the ox-citement? Well, today marks the end of our epic 2020 Lunarcy quilt pattern journey. It is time to release of the Year of the Ox pattern, the last of our twelve collectible animal appliqués representing the Chinese zodiac. With all twelve appliqués now available to you, they can be ...

Lunarcy Quilt: Year of the Tiger Block Release Day

I was, for a very long time as a child and teen, fascinated with big cats; especially tigers. So beautiful, sleek, powerful, mysterious – I had tiger shirts, tiger jigsaws, tiger books, tiger toys….. I even had a real tiger whisker, given to me by a keeper at the Adelaide Zoo. I loved everything about tigers (except the smell!). I would have probably traded a kidney for a domestic orange cat with black stripes in the likeness of Jim Davis’ Garfield, just so I could pretend I owned a mini tiger.

Lunarcy Quilt: Year of the Rabbit Block Release Day

The Chameleon is a Rabbit. He argued his case last week to be a Dragon, but the prosecution asserts that he first popped into existence in 2011. That is, during the most recent Year of the Rabbit. And a birthday is a birthday – so a Rabbit he is, and a Rabbit he must stay.

Actually, the Chameleon seems to be taking the rebuttal quite well now, really. He says he likes being a Rabbit after all. Rabbits are dangerous and scary. Super scary. Take the specimen on our latest colour scheme ...

Lunarcy Quilt: Year of the Dragon Block Release Day

Should it be any surprise that the Chameleon thinks he is a Dragon?

A Chinese legend concerning the origin of the dragon tells of an Emperor who waged war with nine tribes. As he defeated each tribe he added features of their totems to his own. Thus the dragon ended up with a lion’s mane, bug eyes like a shrimp, a big mouth like a bull, a nose like a dog, whiskers like a catfish, antlers like a deer, scales like a fish, a long tail like a snake, and ...

Lunarcy Quilt: Year of the Snake Block Release Day

What do you call a python with no clothes on?

Snaked.

Hissssterical, right?! Well, my 10 year old lad thought so. Bahahaha.

Just dropping in with some Chameleon hiss-trionics to distract you from real life. 2020 might be hiss-tory but it seems that some of the dramas are taking a while to scale back. So while we patiently ant-hiss-ipate better times ahead, how about some more Lunarcy?

I ...

Lunarcy Quilt: Year of the Horse Block Release Day

Happy New Year! I hope that 2021 will hold many moments of friendship, colour and fun for you all. Rainbows all round.

Having said that, I’ve already had my first small 2021 “scare”….. New Year’s Day: the Chameleon dragged himself dejectedly out of bed, claiming that it was time he started acting his age and being responsible. No more silly internet posts for him! On closer inspection, I noticed he was off colour and a little bit hoarse.

Thankfully he was just pranking me and trying to stirrup trouble ...

Lunarcy Quilt: Year of the Goat Block Release Day

Welcome to a special edition of Colour & Inspiration….. yes, it’s a Thursday. One last curveball for you for 2020. Might as well finish the year in the manner to which we have become accustomed! read more

Lunarcy Quilt: Year of the Monkey Block Release Day

And bad Christmas-cracker joke day!

What carol do monkeys like to sing at Christmas time?
Jungle Bells, Jungle Bells!

read more

Lunarcy Quilt: Year of the Rooster Block Release Day

What a fowl year it’s been for many. With a bit of luck though, our collective year of rising roosters is coming to an end. And I’ve got a fitting appliqué to send it on it’s way. Today I am releasing the Year of the Rooster block for the Lunarcy quilt.

It’s been a few weeks since I managed to put out a blog post. Time flies (much more effectively than a rooster) at the best of times… and November/December always have us in an extra ...

Lunarcy Quilt: Year of the Dog Block Release Day

Dog Days: the hot, sultry, uncomfortable days of the Northern Hemisphere summer corresponding to the annual rise of Sirius (the Dog Star) over the horizon. Yuck.

Sirius (and its doggy constellation Canis Major) is a feature of the summer sky here in the Southern Hemisphere too. And since this past week was hot, sultry and super uncomfortable here… I’m proclaiming that our own Dog Days are upon us.

This was Arkaroola on Sunday. What you can’t see is the stinking-hot gales of wind to go with the humidity. It ...

Lunarcy Quilt: Year of the Pig Block Release Day

Another day, another dose of Lunarcy!

Ha! Ain’t that the truth?! Just for something different though, it’s the good kind of Lunarcy scheduled today – we are moving on to the next block of the Lunarcy quilt. Since we are working backwards through the Chinese zodiac (to arrive at the Ox on Chinese New Year 2021), our new block is the Pig. In the zodiac legend, the Pig finished last in the Emperor’s race. There are various versions, but one common story is that the Pig got hungry, had ...

2020 – Year of the Rat

In the beginning there was the Rat. And the Rat jumped the queue.

According to Chinese legend, it was the Rat who (somewhat dodgily) won the Emperor’s race that decided the identity and order of the Zodiac animals. And so it is the Rat who is the first animal of the 12-year Lunar Calendar cycle. As one version of the story goes, the Rat caught a ride in the amiable Ox’s ear to cross a river during the race, but then abused the favour by dashing across the finish line first, claiming the ...

The Lunarcy Quilt continues today

Wasn’t the “It’s A Garden Party” row along this past month fun? I hope you were left with lots of resources and ideas. Now that that intermission is over though, we should return to our regular programming to see what the Chameleon’s been working on.

The big event in the main ring at Clever Chameleon’s circus at the moment is the Lunarcy Quilt, and it’s definitely time to get on with it! So, Part Two of the Lunarcy Quilt pattern is available for you to download today. This new pdf ...

Welcome to the Show and Tell Day for the Garden Party Quilts!

I hope that you’ve enjoyed the past month of the “It’s A Garden Party” row along. I certainly have. Congratulations to Marian at Seams to Be Sew on another successful event, and many thanks to all my co-designers for all their wonderful quilt block patterns and blog posts. Another huge, generous series this year.

And now – today is “Open Gardens Day”. The last day of the blog hop and time to share projects already made from one or more of the myriad of newly released patterns ...

Quilt, quilt as fast as you can!

A surprise package of quilting-friendly weather arrived here at Arkaroola yesterday. You’d never know it now, but the week started out with days of 37C (99F), with severe wind and dust storms. Some poor school holiday campers in the caravan park even had to down their tents and book emergency accomodation in the main village; it was simply that YUCK. But then yesterday a cold front rolled in and now it’s raining. Today’s predicted maximum is 14C (57F)! I know, crazy, right?! Spring!

Mr. Mew is not happy. He’s ...

School’s out for a fortnight. Time to play!

The Chameleon’s on Term break. The Arkaroola “school house” is closed. The tables have been reclaimed as sewing spaces. It’s time to catch up on some sewing, writing and other activities that have been on the backburner so long that they might just have mutated into new life forms.

To celebrate, I’ve started with sewing the next batch of blocks for my Garden Party quilt. Did you catch last week’s quilt blocks in the “It’s A Garden Party” row along and blog hop? I released my ...

A little birdie wants to tell you…

… all about the quilt I am making. It’s from the It’s A Garden Party row along. Oh, oh, he is hopping with excitement! Of course, the little birdie must not tell you too much just yet, but he can drop a few morsels of information. He can definitely show you what I’ve sewn from patterns already released in the It’s A Garden Party row along.

He can also tell you who is participating in the hop next. The hop hop of excitement has really only just got into full ...

Aren’t Hummingbirds the greatest?

Don’t tell the Chameleon, but I think so. One of Nature’s little oddities, and beautiful into the bargain. We don’t have hummingbirds in Australia, and I’ve never seen one, although I’d love to one day. In the meantime I have settled for making an appliqué version…. yup, I started playing around with some of the free patterns being offered in the It’s A Garden Party Row Along that popped up last week. I hope you’ve had a chance to look into that blog hop for both the patterns ...

2020: What a Rodent of a Year!

Well, I think it is safe to say 2020, the Year of the Rat, has not gone to plan. I, for one, will be happy to draw a line under this year and recycle all my 2020 New Year’s hopes and plans for 2021. Easiest New Year’s resolutions ever and environmentally friendly too! read more

We’re Baaaaack……!

The Chameleon thought about slacking off and skipping another week…..

I know, right?!

It was nice having last week off, but the Chameleon is not really one to pass up on a bit of monkey business. So here we are – and monkey business is exactly what we shall have today. It’s time to look at the Year of the Monkey block of the Lunarcy quilt.

Also, I thought you might like to see where we travelled last week. We went to Coober Pedy and stayed in an underground dugout apartment. Coober Pedy, is the “opal capital ...