2015 Pantone Challenge - Marsala - what even is that?

When Pantone announced that their colour for 2015 was Marsala, I was very surprised.  I looked at pictures of Marsala, but I couldn't even really describe the colour - was it brown? dark red? burgundy? what was it?




















I now know that part of the problem was that I didn't know Marsala was a type of wine! I'd never heard of it. We make a lot of wine in New Zealand, but we can't make Marsala because it's a name that can only used for wine that comes from near the village Marsala, in Italy. I guess our wineshops and supermarkets don't feel the need to import Marsala when we have other alternatives grown locally.  Once I realised that Marsala was a type of wine (and not a type of curry known as Masala), the challenge became slightly easier.

Adrienne from On The Windy Side had said that the judges would be quite lenient on the colours used in the challenge, so I picked out a few of the deep red (wine coloured) fabrics that I had on hand. I'd seen some colour charts on another site where they combined lime green with Marsala, and I that idea appealed to me. So I put some lime green in with my Marsala fabrics, and started to play around with them.

I decided to make a cushion out of my Marsala fabrics.  I added some hand stitching to the giant Gerbers on the beautiful Jane Sassaman fabric in the centre panel, and outlined the green leaves with Perle 8 too. I then did some rows of machine quilting across the cushion top.  The back is just a piece of brown fabric I had in my stash, but there is a zip so it can be washed if necessary.

So now I have a nice Marsla cushion which can be used indoors or out.

I loved the Pantone colour of the year in 2014 - Radiant Orchid, and really enjoyed making a lap quilt for that challenge. You can read about that quilt here. I wonder what colour they will come up with next year!