In 2025, Rainbow Stash embarked on another year-long creative challenge: Rainbow Stash: Hero Colour Challenge.

The idea was simple. Each month, participants were given a Hero Colour and a Textile Technique Word Prompt, then challenged to create an original 10-inch square textile artwork responding to those two elements.

The intention was never to produce a collection of identical works. Instead, the shared prompts provided a starting point from which each artist could take their own creative direction.

A colour might suggest a memory, a landscape, an emotion or simply an opportunity to experiment. A technique prompt might be interpreted literally, adapted into something completely different, or become the jumping-off point for an entirely new idea.

That freedom was an important part of the Rainbow Stash philosophy: give artists a common starting point, then see where their individual creativity takes them.

Over the course of the year, artists from Australia and internationally created their monthly pieces. Although every work was the same 10-inch square format, the finished collection demonstrated just how differently artists can respond to the same creative parameters.

The result was a collection of 281 individual textile artworks—281 interpretations of colour, technique and personal creative expression.

Together, the works formed a vibrant snapshot of the Rainbow Stash community in 2025 and showed the extraordinary diversity that can emerge from a simple shared challenge.

The Hero Colour Challenge became part of the ongoing Rainbow Stash exhibition history, continuing the development of a project that brings textile artists together not only to make, but to experiment, learn and share their work with a wider audience.

The Hero Colour challenge at AQC April 2026

Rainbow Stash: Hero Colour Challenge is ultimately about that sense of possibility: one colour, one prompt, one small square—and 281 very different creative responses.

Premiering in Melbourne April 2026 at AQC – Australasian Quilt Convention, with Craft Events, the display drew huge crowds.

The Hero Colour challenge will also be displayed at the Quilt Expo Beaujolais in France in 2027.

(Along with our new challenge “Spin the Wheel”)

I chose to create a series which became a collection of Domestic animals. I created them in 3 different techniques: Painted, Collaged and Printed (various methods)

Instead of using the monthly word prompts as techniques, I wrote a story about each pet and embedded the word in there.