i used to subscribe to the magazine maniacquilter2 refers to & have all my old issues. i make my own patterns. i like lori smith also, but i tend to use what i have on hand which is a mix of civil war, 1800's or regular small scale florals & blenders. i get a lot of scraps given to me so, i just dig thru and don't worry about sticking to a fabric theme. i just use whatever ..just like earlier quilters did. i have found some great blogs that focus on doing mini quilts by doing image search of mini quilts and going to site image originated from.