Soon I will be attending Quilt Canada 2016. This year it will be held in Toronto and I decided to take some classes. Jane Sassaman is teaching a class called: Abstracting from Nature (designs class). This class requires us to bring in a live bouquet or close-up photos of flowers including leaves, buds and so on to use as a springboard to design our own quilt. The design will not be a representation of the flower, rather the finished design will be a an abstraction. I am looking forward to taking this class, I love Jane’s bold designs and her use of colour.

I looked through my photo album and pulled a few photos that I really liked in preparation for this class.


This is my favourite photo of berries.

I like how the sunlight sparkles on the leaves and berries.

Gorgeous colour!

I realized that these photos could also be used later in the summer for Helen Garland’s class: Quilting – Complex Design & Piecing. This one week workshop is being taught at the Haliburton School of Art + Design. Any photograph can be used in this class, but I especially like the idea of a floral piece. I talk a little bit about Helen’s process in this post.

This was an amazing tree trunk, it has so much texture!

Plate sized fungi growing on a tree.


These berries look like grapes. Do you know what they really are?