Quilt Market is coming up again in just over a month, and I'm going to be doing a schoolhouse and book signing during my stay in Houston. Eek! I'm both excited and frightened by the prospect of this. First off, can I actually talk for 30 minutes coherently about my book? I hope so. I need to write myself some talking points to keep me from veering off-topic and spending 22 minutes talking about my love for Denyse Schmidt's fabrics or something related and oh-so-not-related all at the same time. Secondly, I'm going to need to work on practicing my signature. Seriously! I have the signature of a seventeen year old boy who's going to grow up to be a doctor - sloppy, mostly illegible and not at all what you would call pretty.

Now thirdly, I have something to finish preparing that's way more fun for Market, and pretty, too - a mini-quilt that I plan to give away to one lucky attendee of my schoolhouse! I had a terrible time trying to decide which quilt I wanted to do in a mini, and after a ton of deliberation, I decided I wanted to do Polaris, a really fun, scrappy Ohio star quilt that focuses on teaching sewing quarter-square triangle units and making them as easy as possible.

Polaris quilt from my book, Becoming a Confident Quilter photo courtesy of Martingale & Co

For my mini, I made four blocks, so it came together quite quickly over the weekend. I started with a color palette that I was really digging, pulled some scraps and fat quarters based on it, and got to pressing and cutting. It felt good to just have some fun with fabric and some good tunes.


The best part was that I had good company while I was digging through my scraps - my munchkin loves to play in my scrap bins, and put random combinations up on my design wall. Yesterday he actually wanted to mimic what I was piecing, which was fun. He kept asking me to cut more triangles for him so he could create new patterns. I loved the way he kept trying to sing along with the songs on my playlist, that was adorable.


I'm definitely planning to sew up some more minis, pillows, and quilts from my book soon, and I cannot believe that it starts shipping tomorrow. I'm hoping to get my first box of books soon so I can fulfill the pre-orders that many of you placed at my Pattern Shop. If you still want to pre-order a copy, you can do so right here or at Amazon - or you can pick up the latest issue of Quilt Sampler and take the $10 Martingale rebate form found inside on page 121 to your local quilt shop to pick up my book and get a great deal at the same time!

Stay tuned tomorrow for more book pictures, I'm so excited to finally be sharing them! Have a great day today :)