2024 Pantone Quilt Challenge
How do you feel about tiger stripes? Lisa Frank Tiger Stripes! That’s the working title for my latest quilt top, which I designed and pieced as part of the 2024 Pantone Quilt Challenge hosted by Elizabeth Ray and Sarah Ruiz. It’s roughly 70 inches square.
This is my finished quilt top for the 2024 Pantone Quilt Challenge. It’s roughly 70 inches square.
This is my fourth time participating in the annual challenge, which encourages quilters to make a project using Pantone’s Color of the Year (COTY). When Peach Fuzz 13-1023 was announced back in December, it received a lukewarm reception from many artists, myself included. But I was determined to see if I could incorporate it into one of my quilts.
Last summer, I drew several sketches inspired by a motif in the book Japanese Optical and Geometrical Art by Hajime Ōuchi. With more than 700 copyright-free designs that explore the concept of nōtan or “light-dark harmony,” it’s a fantastic resource. My first sketch featured a single, large-scale striped ring, which I resized and multiplied in the second sketch. I auditioned several color palettes for each design and eventually settled on what you see below.
All of the fabric for Lisa Frank Tiger Stripes was hand-dyed with Procion MX dyes. The Peach Fuzz background and the purple center diamond were dyed with a low-water immersion technique to create a subtle, tone-on-tone texture. I love the result!
The stripes are machine pieced and each one was cut on the bias. I did that because I wanted the grainlines to align with the grainline of the background fabric, horizontally across the quilt, once the circles are set in. The bias edges required a delicate hand when sewing and pressing, but the final alignment of grainlines means the top is nice and flat for quilting. Now I just have to decide on a motif.
If you want to see more of my Pantone COTY designs, click these links: I made Flower Hat Jelly with Ultraviolet in 2018, Print Study: When Plans Fall Apart with Living Coral in 2019, and Pink-a-Boo with Viva Magenta in 2023.
May 6 update: I’m pleased to share this piece won first place in the Just the Top category of the 2024 Pantone Quilt Challenge! There were many excellent submissions this year, congratulations to all of the winners.
