Welcome from Seattle. I love the Coeur d'Alene/Pend Oreille area. It's good land with four distinct seasons (rather miss that over here). I spent a year in Moscow, ID when my mom was going to graduate school -- it is actually where/when I started quilting.
I started quilting towards the end of the 70s but before rotary cutters -- good luck on the paper piecing, it is one of my "non-strengths" but I have a project that is nagging me to get back to that involves a few paper pieced blocks. I just don't think that way.