Another year, another QuiltCon fabric challenge! There’s something about a challenge that always appeals to me, and I have entered the fabric challenge category every year since 2018. That makes this my 8th fabric challenge quilt — wow! (Here are all the others: 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024.)
For the QuiltCon 2025 challenge, featured speaker Tara Faughnan chose six different Ruby & Bee solid fabrics. The challenge requires you to use at least 3, but I always prefer to use all of them, and this year was no different. I have to admit that I didn’t totally love this year’s palette — and even after making this quilt, I’m still pretty on the fence about it. I like each of the color individually, but together they’re not my favorite. BUT! That’s part of the challenge!
This washi tape college — which I made in 2022 as part of my 100 Days of Tiny Art project — was the inspiration for my challenge quilt. I knew I was signing myself up for a lot of precise piecing, but I thought the end result would look pretty cool if I could pull it off.
My first step was to starch the heck out of my fabric. I’d never done this before! But I knew starch would help keep the fabric more stable as I pieced all of the strips, so I took the time to really soak each piece and let it air dry. I used a whole bottle of Best Press — whew.
I considered a couple different construction methods for this quilt. I was initially hoping I could make rectangular striped sections and then use a “stitch and flip” method to join them. This would create the diagonal lines, but I think it would have been fairly difficult to get the seams of each striped section to align properly.
Ultimately I chose to piece each individual section, as you can get a glimpse of in the image above right. For the diagonal sections, I marked each solid gray piece to help me align the next section properly. I also made each two-tone strip just a bit oversized so that I could trim them down. Both of these steps could be tedious, but they were necessary for the precision I wanted. (And honestly it wasn’t too painful once I got going.)
Once I had all my striped columns completed and had added the dark gray fabric to the top and bottom of each one, it was time to join them together. This time I marked where each stripe hit the sashing so that I could align the next column to keep the left-to-right flow of the colored stripes. This was again a somewhat tedious task but totally necessary! If I’d been off too much, the whole design of the quilt would suffer.
Next step: quilting. I chose to quilt diagonal lines in the same direction of the diagonal lines between fabric colors. I auditioned several different thread colors and types, and chose 4 colors that were very close to the fabric colors — red, pink, light blue/gray, and gold. Using the different colors creates a neat effect of subtle stripes that run diagonally across the quilt top. (To be honest, this effect ended up being a little more subtle than I intended! But I think it does show up nicely from a distance.)
To get long, unbroken diagonal quilting lines on a longarm, you have to load the quilt diagonally! I’ve done this a few times before, but I always get a few questions about this process. It’s really not too difficult, but the catch is that you need really oversized backing and batting because those still get loaded normally. You can see what I mean in the image above taken after I pulled the quilt off the frame — the quilt top is turned diagonally, and there are huge triangles of excess batting and backing in each corner.
As an aside, the little gray squares are where I tested my thread tension each time I changed thread color. I used Aurifil thread for the first time with this longarm, and also had to wind my own bobbins. Two new variables meant I was verrrrry wary of my thread tension, so I did a little test each and every time I changed threads.
It was worth all the setup and care though, because I’m so happy with how it turned out! I do have to laugh at the back of the quilt though. To get a backing large enough to work with the diagonal loading, I had to piece my fabric leftovers together and add it to the bottom of my wideback…and then 75% of that fabric got trimmed away. But I do like the effect of a bottom corner of challenge fabric, also on the diagonal just like the rest of the quilt design!
And oh, the name! The stripes remind me of seeing bright city lights through window blinds at night, or of the stacked lights on a music equalizer. But those two together, and you’ve got Urban Equalizer. I finished the quilt in mid-October, took photos, and got it submitted for QuiltCon! Fingers crossed it will make an appearance at the show in February.
The stats:
- Quilt measures 56″ x 72″.
- Top fabrics and binding are Ruby + Bee solids by Windham Fabrics.
- Backing is a Dear Stella print plus more Ruby & Bee solids.
- Batting is Hobbs 80/20 cotton/poly.
- Pieced with Aurifil 50 wt thread in #2600 (Dove).
- Quilted on my APQS Millie with Aurifil 50 wt thread in red, light blue, gold, and pale pink.
Anonymous says
Love this Just gorgeous
SusanF says
I love this new quilt but also the Backyard Chatter Quilt and the Cosmic Quilt too. I know my daughter would love the Notes to Self quilt. Thanks for sharing all your entries and good luck for the coming year!