Pantone Quilt Challenge 2025: Mocha Mousse
It’s that time again! For several years now, modern quilters Sarah Ruiz and Elizabeth Ray have hosted a quilt challenge that centers around the Pantone Color of the Year. Pantone is well known in the art, design, and fashion industry as an authority on color and color trends, as well as a source for professional color standards. Per the Pantone website,
The Pantone Color of the Year program engages the design community and color enthusiasts in a conversation around color, highlighting the relationship between color and culture. Pantone selects a color each year that captures the global zeitgeist—the Color of the Year express a global mood and an attitude, reflecting collective desire in the form of a single, distinct hue.
For 2025, the Pantone Color Institute selects PANTONE 17-1230 Mocha Mousse, a warming, brown hue imbued with richness. It nurtures us with its suggestion of the delectable qualities of chocolate and coffee, answering our desire for comfort.
Image courtesy of Pantone
I really enjoy challenges - something about a deadline and the opportunity to get creative within set boundaries gets my brain buzzing!
This is my third year entering the challenge - in 2023 I created Pantone Plumage featuring the bold Viva Magenta. I loved this color so much I actually purchased a pair of Viva Magenta sneakers!
Last year, I decided fairly last-minute to enter (Peach Fuzz did not speak to me like Viva Magenta did), creating All Signs Point to Peach. I was thrilled to win one of the giveaways for a set of Aurifil thread, which was perfect for me as I’m a loyal Aurifil user.
This year, I’ve been playing around a lot with variations on a block that I pieced in preparation to teach a class on strip piecing. It’s essentially a nine-patch within a nine-patch. Stay tuned for the additional iterations of this block in my work, but for now, I give you: Mocha Quiver!
I lucked out in having just barely enough of 2 colors in my stash that I felt worked for the challenge. I think the darker brown might be Kona Pecan, but I’m not sure; the lighter one might be Colorworks Creme Brulee? Also, this is a hard color to photograph accurately!
I really wanted to create a design that was just a little off - not quite a symmetrical grid. This resulted in partial seams around a 1” finished square…I won’t be doing that again, lol. The result is a little optical illusion-y, I think, and I love it! Just not enough to do partial seams around a 1” finished square again.
I wanted to counter all the straight lines with some curved quilting that still had some structure - I ended up repeating large “S” shapes in a radial pattern in 4 quadrants, meeting in the very center of the quilt. (Thanks to Jacquie Gering for that design idea, via her Walk 2.0 book!)
(Have I mentioned how hard it is to photograph these colors? I think the true in person color is somewhere between the cool outer images and warm center one…)
If you’re local to the Raleigh, NC area, you can see Mocha Quiver in person until the end of June 2025 at the Sertoma Arts Center as part of my small solo show there, Both/And!
I have seen lots of works in progress on Instagram and all I can say is WOW. I can’t wait for the full gallery and to see what the judges pick!
