Bronx Quilter: Quilt Industry News: Pat Sloan is Retiring !!

Pat Sloan has uploaded her LAST YouTube video!

Although all of her videos will remain on YouTube for now, she and her husband Gregg are officially shutting down their quilt business. Pat has been a quilt pattern and fabric designer for 26 years.

Pat was employed professionally as a software designer and project manager in the computer industry. However after learning to quilt, she decided to pursue her dream to own her own business and started designing patterns to sell to quilt shops. Back then her quilt style was more "primitive" and featured a lot of applique.

She also wrote patterns for magazines and then published books with McCalls Quilting, Leisure Arts and (the dearly departed) Martingale Publishing (some of which can now still be purchased through C&T Publishing). She also traveled the country as an in-person quilt teacher and was the featured teacher on two international quilt tours. She has also designed fabric lines for P & B Textiles, MODA and in recent years for Benartex Fabrics.

An industry pioneer, Pat started an internet radio show called "Creative Talk Radio" in 2010 then in 2011 partnered with American Patchwork and Quilting Magazine to host a show for them.

That show later continued as a podcast that she hosted for them until 2020. She says she started doing videos when YouTube first came out and then began doing her daily videos during the pandemic. Pat also hosted Aurifil's "Designer of the Month" series on their blog from 2010 to 2020.

Pat has also had a long standing social media presence and has talked about starting all the way back when she did a group on the photo sharing site Flicker. She has also hosted two Facebook groups: the main one as "Pat Sloan Quilting" and another "Fireside Chat" group for crafts other than quilting and cooking topics. She transitioned the two into a new account earlier this year and will now continue that just as a personal page.

Sadly, Pat lost her mother last year after caring for her during the last six months of her life. During that time Pat was forced to cut back on her daily video schedule and I think those life changing events also made her take stock and begin thinking about winding down her quilt business. She says that she and her husband have been able to travel for pleasure a bit lately and look forward to doing more of that now that she will not have to devote time to promoting her business ventures.

As a big Pat Sloan fan, I will definitely miss her! What follows is my own mini tribute to Pat as a quilt designer and influencer even if as of right now I have more planned or "fabric funded" than made, LOL!

The first of her designs that I made was "Valor" finished in 2013. It was from a kit that featured the pattern designed by Pat to showcase her "Tribute" fabric line with P&B Textiles.

Hung outside my home for July 4th one year!

I also used some of the leftovers from that kit to make "Tribute", my mini quilt version of the lap size quilt she designed for the Spring 2011 issue of Fabric Trends magazine.

I've also made two of her seasonal wallhanging designs: in 2023 I made her Fall themed "Thankful" published in her book "Holiday Hoopla".

In 2024 I made my version of her "Hello Luv" quilt that she originally designed for the Fat Quarter Shop's Button Club and later published in her book "Holiday Celebrations".

This also makes me glad that I recently got to longarm my version of her "String Beans" quilt which had been one of her "Block-A-Day" projects that was offered in March 2022.

It's still waiting for binding though!

During the pandemic Pat was also a big influence for me that lead me to start cross stitching! I later made these two "Year of the...." pieces after seeing her stitching them up:

I was influenced to make this coronation one when Pat showcased quilt and cross stitch projects to celebrate that historic event.

I got this English Tier one started in 2024 when Pat worked on her "London Town" quilt project.

As she winds down her presence in the quilt industry, it has also made me reflect on how many more of her projects that I have set up. Whew, it's actually quite a list!! So I've already put it on my plans for the remainder of this year and for 2027 to try to finish off at least some of them.

A top priority is to finish my Christmas panel design that's based on Pat's "Scrappy Squares" quilts.

Pat's influence led to....

....wanting to make this!

Hopefully this one will get done to hang up for Christmas this year!

I also need to get back to the applique blocks I gathered fabrics for in 2024 for Pat's "Breakfast Club" Mystery. This one was a "Block-A-Week" sew along that I am miniaturizing so I can hang it in my kitchen.

Also in 2024, Pat's March "Block A Day" project was a really nice one called "Toffee Bars".

I got some lovely Kaffe Fassette and Marsha Derse fabrics that I had planned to use in this one so really look forward to finally making it up next year.

The size of these "Wishing Rings" blocks were pieced based on the ones seen on Cathy's Sane, Crazy, Crumby Quilting blog. However, the decision to make them as a year long "Block-A-Day" project was influenced by a similar block called "Hope" that Pat did as a "BAD" in 2021.

These are all pieced and now need to go up on the design wall to decide on a layout.

Cathy's influence on the left, Pat's influence on the right.

I also have two camping-related projects that were Pat Quilt Alongs: First, I had put together a "kit" for Pat's "I Love Camping" Block of the Month in 2018.

I had always hoped to get this made up to use as another camping quilt. Now that I've revisited the fabrics I collected for this, I am excited to see how this one develops -- that is, if I can get to it given the list of all the other things of hers that I'd also like to work on!

In 2024, Pat did the "Ode to our National Parks" Quilt Along.

Of course I couldn't resist doing that one since my DH and I have visited three of them and dream of evenutally visiting them all. My plan for this QAL was to make my blocks into a tote bag that I can use on my camping trips!

One block is done, only eight more to go!

In 2022, Pat was also the influence to expanding the color scheme of a "non-Pat" project: I had signed up and received kits for Minick & Simpson's "Blue Pear" BOM . Then I saw Pat's "Hometown Charm" quilt:

What is even better is that I got to see Pat's quilt in person at the Virginia Quilt Museum when she had an exhibit there that year.

Pat has been a big supporter of the museum and I was introduced to it from her videos. As a result, I decided to purchase red Minick & Simpson prints and add them to the "Blue Pear" layout to give it a color scheme just like Pat's sampler.

Speaking of the VA Museum, I also still have plans to make the VA museum's "Silver Lake" quilt. Sales of the pattern were a fundraiser for the museum that was promoted by Pat. The quilt is designed by her good friend Wendy Sheppard of Ivory Spring whose work (particularly her domestic machine quilting) I am also a huge fan of.

I have my background fabric and my plan is to make it up in 30s reproductions like the original Spitzer family quilt that is in the museum's collection.