Over the past few years, I have come to really look forward to seeing the new quilting challenges dreamt up by Project Quilting starting in January of each year. Last year I participated in two of their challenges, and the Birthstone Challenge inspired me to create one of my favorite 2025 projects. Last Sunday when the first challenge of the 17th Season of Project Quilting was made public, I was immediately intrigued by the Clean Slate prompt. Though I shy away from New Year’s resolutions, I always love the opportunity to refocus at the start of each year. The deal clincher for me were two questions posed by Trish:

“When everything’s not yelling, what do you notice has been whispering for you to listen? How about you make that?”

Since I was between projects, I had the opportunity to think about the prompt for awhile, not feeling obligated to participate but instead during my favorite quiet morning hours on Monday, I thought about a theme for 2026 and came up with the word, Explore. I will be literally exploring a new part of the world to me in August when I take a Quilting Cruise to Alaska. I also appreciate internal exploration through journaling. And of course I want to continue to expand my creativity with color.

I had FPP templates on my computer purchased From Blank Pages for 3” letters and numbers. I decided to create a mini banner to hang above the doorway into the back room. I used a grey cross-weave fabric for background and colorful scraps for the letters and numbers. The mini quilt finishes at 3.5” x 22”.

Linking up to PQ 17.1 Clean Slate.