Pat Sloan's Blog:

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Saturday, July 27, 2013

Pat Sloan: Cooking for Quilters and Walking for Quilters

Cooking... Walking... Walking... cooking.. we need to do both if we want to SEW ALL THE TIME.. am I right? We want to eat great stuff and sew all the time. But we need to MOVE OUR BUTTs too.

So it's a 3 part thing... Sew, Cook, Walk... Repeat

In comes "Pinch of Yum" to my rescue! I LOVE Lindsay's writing, her cooking style and ... she has foods that are yummy, directions that are fantastic and is all around interesting to read... uh.. I mean cook with....

well I love her because you see this huge pile of goodies? I WON THIS from Lindsay!

Let's step back a moment.. I found her blog a LONG TIME AGO.. became a huge fan girl... blog follower.. and then stalked.. read everyday

Lindsay has written a GREAT ebook on photographing food, she had a contest... She gave away a copy of her ebook AND a HUGE box of props!! HOW EXCITING!!

AND.. I WON!!!!!!!! I NEVER WIN ANYTHING.. sound familiar?

So being an obsessed Fan Girl.. loyal reader... when I went to make dinner the other day I cruised around Pinch of Yum to find Baked Mozzarella Chicken. Doesn't Lindsay's photo look amazing? I went for it.

Instead of pounding my own chicken flat, I got sliced chicken breasts... and I used lowfat cottage cheese. Other than that I pretty much followed her directions and made enough for TWO dinners! See tht is what we quilters do.. make enough to cover another day.. woot!

Now I'm getting incredients for her crockpot Pork Adobo with black beans CLICK HERE

And her chocolate chip cookies, as quilters do not live on just dinner, we need a bit of sweet! What I love about this post is she experimented and figured out what to do so they are always fantastic. And it's detailed, and she shows you the flopped versions too! CLICK HERE

I've been talking cooking a lot since I love GREAT food and figured I should 'relearn' how to cook. Why not.. it's better to have what I KNOW is GREAT.

Now for crockpots..

What is YOUR BEST Crock Pot Recipe?

Tell me in the comments.. it' counts for the prize giveaway I'll do Aug 1!

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Posted by PatSloan in Life with Pat | Permalink | Comments (25)

Friday, July 26, 2013

Pat Sloan: A day in the life - Sorting Quilts

I started sorting quilts a few days ago... and this afternoon I was really starting to get a handle on WHAT I have.. and spent an hour more sorting... and I'll FINISH sorting today because I'm on a roll.. does that happen to you? Let's take a look...

I am only on STEP ONE of this process, and that is to sort the quilts by

Published in a book (30 books)
Published in a magazine (published since 1998)
Published in a by another publisher (several)
Published in as a freebie (LOADS)
Not Published (even more!)

This is about 3/4 of the piles.. there are more downstairs... so I have about 1/4 of my quilts still to take off the shelves and put into a pile.

Let's take a look at a few of these piles.

Each column of quilts is a category

Left to right... Single patterns, Magazines, Not published. That isn't all of them, but a start

These are piles of quilts in book. Since I have 30 books, I can't make 30 piles in my house.. ack!

So each stack is 3 to 4 books worth of quilts... I'm still working on this..

The Double Wedding Ring Templates go to Amy Fratto who told us who taught her to quilt

"My paternal grandmother taught me to sew and then home ec in junior high school. Then in my 20's I taught myself to quilt. Now at 40, I am trying to branch out and try things that I have been afraid to try in the past."

My 'Custom Fabric Tassel" goes to Kris who left me a recipe in my Day in the Life post! CLICK HERE to see what people are cooking

"My new fave summer recipe - hubby loves fresh corn and this is a nice alternative to plain ol' corn on the cob.
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Black-Bean-And-Corn-Salad-I/Detail.aspx?evt19=1"

and Deb! (yes TWO Tassels!)

"I like to use my crockpot in the summer and avoid the stove... this one is a keeper!

http://www.skinnytaste.com/2013/02/crock-pot-sesame-honey-chicken.html"

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Posted by PatSloan in Pat's Quilts | Permalink | Comments (10)

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Pat Sloan: 3 easy steps to Audition Sashing Fabric

For me, selecting fabric is the best part of making a quilt. I enjoy every little part of the fabric picking process. The other day was working on this UFO (6" blocks that I was not going to make any more of.. setting them and calling them DONE!). It was time in the process to look at sashing fabrics and I thought I'd share how I work through it.

Ready?

My 3 Easy Steps to Auditioning Sashing fabric

Come on..it's fun!

Step 1 - collect a pile of fabric that is IN the blocks. Then pull some fabrics INTO this stack that are NOT in the blocks. I'm looking for a sashing that will complement a lot of the blocks. And if my options, note I said OPTIONS, look good on the table, they might look GREAT in the quilt!

Pull fabrics and select several that might make great sashing.

Step 2 -The key for me is my design wall. I can stick up several options at once.

Then I put the blocks over top

And take a photo.. several photos.

What do I think?

The peach has potential. It makes the quilt seem light and lively.

The Linen strip looks more elegant, refined, I'm liking it.

The pale yellow seems a tad wishy washy.

Let's look at the peach first. I do NOT have enough of the one fabric. So I find some others that are similar.

I take all the blocks off the wall and put up 3 peach fabrics

I then put the blocks back, with brown corner stones

What do I think? Well there is a LOT is blending of the blocks into the sashing. I want these blocks to stand out more.. not blend.

Take photos.. post on Facebook and Instagram, and at my online Quilt Group

Take all the blocks off the wall and put the linen up. This time I plopped a pink corner stone in.

Take more photos.. post on Facebook and Instagram and at my online Quilt Group

A lot of people love the linen, but not the hot pink

Change out the corner stones to the brown, and put up a sample of the Piano key border it will have.

Take photos.. post on Facebook and Instagram and at my online Quilt Group

I like this.. I like it A LOT. It is NOT what I had expected and that is what makes it even more fun!

Now leave it on my design wall for several days to mellow... to see if I REALLY like it.

Take closer looks.. here is a block fabric audition. I had to make 6 blocks to get this quilt to the size I wanted it.

Step 3 -CUT your sashing and corner stones out

Until you actually CUT FABRIC you can't tell what you have going on.

Take photos.. post on Facebook and at my online Quilt Group

yes... I like this. The setting triangles will also be linen. I decided to take the corners all the way out to the ends rathr than set them just in the center.

Do you know how to do on point settings? I have a great lesson in my "Beyond the Basics" book CLICK HERE. I teach you how to do a lot of techniques, one being figure out on point settings!

What are YOU sewing?? I will pick the 2 winners from the Double Wedding Ring blog post an my "55" blog post TOMORROW... one more chance to get in on the giveaways!

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