Pumpkin Season

Last fall, as one of my first seasonal quilt patterns, I made a jack-o'-lantern wall hanging in my more typical style. It wasn't perfect, in fact I had to go back and add in the grass because the pumpkin seemed a little off kilter to me.

The main purpose of the project was to write a pattern for it, and I did.Taking a phrase from my friend, it wasn't perfect, but it was done. An idea that had been floating around in my head was a finished product and hopefully someone would find it useful as well.

Six months later, I had some black fabric left over from a t-shirt quilt I made my nephew for his high school graduation. This was the second t-shirt quilt I had made, the first being 17 years ago for my husband's race shirts.

Back then I had no idea how to make a t-shirt quilt other than cutting up the shirts and sewing them together. I also didn't know how to quilt then, so there was no sashing and I sewed it sandwich style with yarn ties.

Fast forward quilt a few years and my sister-in-law asked if I would make my nephew a quilt, and oh, could she have 50 t-shirts in it? We finally came up with a 4x6 placement for 48 shirts, double-sided to fit them all.

The piecing went great, but stitching a straight line down the middle of the sashing on both sides at once went a little wonky. In the end, he was very happy with it!

              

Back to having some black fabric left over. It was the perfect sized piece to create a seasonal quilt. There was actually enough for two, or one if I used black for the backing. Knowing that using black as a background was stretching my creativity, I chose to just make one.

Somewhere along the line, during one of my Pinterest sessions, I had seen a folk-art style pumpkin on a black background. As I thought of that idea, I remembered a piece of brown homespun sitting in a bag of seldom used fabric.

With those thoughts in mind, I was all set to draw a new pattern. Wait! I have the pattern already, I just need to draw a vine and some leaves. A half hour or so later I had a new option for this pattern. Now whoever buys it has their choice of a traditional jack-o'-lantern, or a folk-art pumpkin.

I like to name my patterns and had originally named this "On Point Jack-O'-Lantern". No longer fitting, I changed it to "Pumpkin Season".

If you would like to make the pattern, or use the applique template for your own design, my pattern can be found in my Etsy shop.