Pat Sloan's Book Tour! Teach Me to Machine Quilt!


See that smiling face on the cover?  That's my friend Pat Sloan!  AND I'm really excited that she asked me to be a part of her book tour for her awesome new book Pat Sloan's Teach Me to Machine Quilt: Learn the Basics of Walking Foot and Free-Motion Quilting.

This book is the third in a new "Teach Me" to quilt series that Pat is putting together.  The other two books in the series, Pat Sloan's Teach Me to Applique: Fusible Applique That's Soft and Simple and Pat Sloan's Teach Me to Sew Triangles: 13 Easy Techniques Plus 12 Fun Quilts are still available so make sure you grab those too so you can have them all!  As a quilt shop owner, I think this is a great idea.  I have customers that will come into the shop and see a quilt and say, "Oh, I could never do that.  I don't know how to _______."  I can just hand them a book with Pat's smiling face on it and say, "Now you can!"

Machine quilting on a home machine is is the most requested class in my shop.  It seems scary at first to quilters.  Here's a quilt top that took hours and hours to finish and they don't want to ruin it.  Or they don't know where to start.  AND you see all these folks who have been quilting for years (or who send their quilts out to a professional) and you compare yourself.  "My quilting could never look like that!"  Of course it can!  Get Pat's book and get practicing!

Teach Me to Machine Quilt has a lot of information.  Some quilting books you see just have a few ages of introductory quilt information and then some projects.  Not so on this book.  It's really meant to dive deep into the subject of machine quilting.  And it really does.  Pat goes over the entire process from start to finish.  She highlights different methods too.  For example, pin basting vs. spray basting. This way you can try both out and decide for yourself which you prefer.  That makes Pat's book one that you can keep as a reference and go back to over and over again.  AND it includes information for BOTH free motion quilting AND walking foot quilting!

One of my favorite things about Teach Me to Machine Quilt are the visual references.  There are a lot of pictures in this book.  Including visual references on thread weights and what that looks like quilted, different ways to piece the back of the quilt, and what your quilting should look like and how to fix issues.  PLUS there are 8 bonus videos that you can watch (information on how to see them is in the book!) so you can really get a good idea of what Pat is talking about.  That is very valuable.

The sample projects at the end of the book are great for practicing what you just learned.  Pat has included both small (nice to start with something more manageable) and larger (lap size) projects.  She also has some applique to practice after you have learned everything from Teach Me to Applique.  I fell in love with the Cherry Pie project from the book and I started a few blocks.


Pretty cool blocks huh?  My plan is to make two more (smaller than the version in Pat's book) and then quilt the baby quilt myself.  These blocks finish at 15" so they are just the right size to make a quick baby quilt.  And I'm pretty sure I can handle quilting that myself .  Especially now that I have Pat's book to walk me through it... get it, walk me... you know because of the walking foot..   Okay, bad joke.

Make sure you go to Pat's Blog and enter to win a copy of her book!  Thanks Pat for including me :)