Decisions, Decisions

It has occurred to me that I'm going to be biting off a big chunk of anxiety if I continue to put off planning for an upcoming 4-day class I'm taking in Vancouver. Not Vancouver, B.C. No, I'm speaking of our neighbor city to the north across the border into that den of iniquity called Washington. If you don't know why I'm calling it a "den of iniquity" consider this: Marijuana is legal there.

Oh wait...it's legal here in Oregon too. So, never mind.

The class I'm taking is called "Designing from Nature" taught by Ann Shaw, and it'll be held at the Fiddlesticks Quilt Shop in Vancouver, a shop I have yet to visit. I'm actually looking forward to the class. The class is based on the technique of Ruth McDowell, who has retired from teaching, but I love her work. (I just gave you a lot of links there, so if you're interested, click on any one of them to learn more about this.)

The class is held at the end of April, and I have some work to do to get ready for it. There is a lengthy supply list. I have most everything, but I'm going to need to make my way to a craft store for a few things. Honestly, I hate craft stores. I know...it's practically blasphemy to say that, but I really prefer quilt shops with lots of fabric and thread. The rest of that stuff just confuses me...scrapbooking, painting, cake decorating, flower arranging. I mean, what quilter isn't so obsessed with sewing that she has any time for anything else?

The other thing I need to do is to choose some photos or drawings to work from. We are told that "distinct subjects in a photo (a flower, plant, person, animal, etc.) work best with this design technique . . . select a variety of photos to consider for your quilt design." This morning I spent nearly two hours going through approximately 10 billion photographs trying to narrow it down to five or six. I narrowed it down to a few, but I'm going to have to narrow it down even further. These are the ones I have so far.

This first one might be too busy for my purposes, but I like it. It was taken in Ireland.

This one is probably a better choice, and maybe I'll crop it to just one or two chairs. It was taken in Rockaway, Oregon.

These next ones were taken in our own yard.

The next one was taken on Mt. Rainier.

This one is a watercolor painted by a Facebook friend from high school. When she posted it on her page, I asked her permission to make a quilt from it.

I would need to crop it to the size I need.

Also in my photo meanderings, I found this image of George. Good old George. I might like to make his pawtrait from this image at some point in the future.

The best animal pawtraits are from images where the animal looks directly into the camera as George kindly did here. This was taken on one of our many walks in the woods. I miss walking in the woods with my kitty, and I've so far been unable to convince Smitty that walking in the woods is a worthwhile pasttime.

The only other thing I've done this morning is more stitching on my embroidery piece. I'm almost to the top of the quilt shop now.

When I pick it up tomorrow, I'll start right here.

The negotiations for Top Cat continue. 

What's the matter, Big Boy? You're not afraid of a *girl* are you?

So I've probably been sitting long enough this morning. The sun is trying to shine, so I'm going to try to get out for a walk in between rain showers.