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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!

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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 ...

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

Desert winters are nothing if not unpredictable

Winter is a funny thing in the desert. The nights are mostly bitterly cold, while the days are pleasantly warm. But very occasionally we get a wind blowing in with heat from somewhere, and the night can stay ‘balmy’ for many hours after sunset. We had one of those evenings on Friday night. While the freezing cold nights (think frozen water pipes) are bug-free, warmer evenings bring small collections of brave new winter visitor species we haven’t seen before. Mostly lazy moths decorated in interesting patterns, like this pretty little thing that ...

Thirsty, Busy, Romantic Visitors

June seems to be nesting season at Arkaroola. There are lots of pairs of birds around, and I’ve even been seeing a few different species collecting nesting materials. A Little Crow went past my lounge room window on the weekend with several large sticks in its beak. The Mallee Ringneck Parrots seem to be collecting moss or lichen from my roof. And all the lads have started trying to impress their dinner dates by bringing them to the very exclusive Chameleon’s freshwater café and bar.

The nights here have become very cold recently, which ...

Happy Winter, from the Southern Hemisphere

Our winter officially started here yesterday. Although if you were here, you’d be forgiven for not noticing: 18C (64F) and sunny. Truly lovely weather during the day, although the nights are chilly now.

The desert knows it’s not summer anymore though. The Salvation Jane weeds (also known as Paterson’s Curse) are growing their incredibly perfect rosettes of teal leaves in the creek bed. Hate the weed, but got to admire that growth habit in our colour board! Also, another weed that has been insipidly hanging ...

Flowers this week. Lots of flowers. No more creepy crawlies…

The Chameleon objects, naturally. But I am more sympathetic to the bug-not-lovers out there…… I’ve just realised that the size of the local insects dictates the size of the local spiders. I’m a bit off bugs this week.

So, luckily for me there is a new interesting array of flowers out to show you instead. We’ve been having yoyo weather…. it was up to the mid thirties (degrees C) the other day and now we are heading into the mid-teens, tops. And we’ve had a little ...

Everything grows like weeds after summer rain!

Including the weeds. This week we have been madly helping out with weed control around the Arkaroola village. It’s a crucial few days where the weeds are big enough to easily identify amongst all the beneficial plants, but haven’t started dropping seed yet. The window of opportunity is short, and for the Bindii is almost shut already.

Between that, and schooling, I have still managed a little sightseeing and a little sewing. It helps that we had a public holiday yesterday to get a few things done. I’ve got all ...

The Lunar New Year began yesterday, January 25th, so it was a great excuse to make an Asian inspired meal, and read a couple of books with Chinese cooking as the theme.   In China, even though this is the dead of winter, it is called Spring Festival and the celebration can go on for days.  People wear red, and eat dumplings for good luck and prosperity in the new year.  I was amazed to find out that the Chinese New Year celebrations have more fireworks worldwide than January first at midnight.  It changes year to year, because it is based ...

Happy Lunar New Year 2020!

As I write this, it is Chinese New Year today and Australia Day tomorrow. So I’m wishing everyone who celebrates either or both occasions a very splendid day.

I am celebrating today, albeit in the absence of the Chinese branch of my extended family, with the next step towards launching our next free BOM here at Clever Chameleon. I got word this morning that the Lunar New Year quilt BOM will be supported by Island Batik, who will very kindly supply the fabrics shown in the picture above so I can make the demo ...