I’m Jess of Cottage Laine! Have you felt that cool breeze in the air yet? Maybe you have seen the first leaf fall off of the trees? Well, I have definitely taken notice and I am very excited to share my adoration of autumn with you today, and a little hand quilting too! Today I will be sharing my Cottage Pumpkin block with you. It is a quick make and the perfect size for trying your hand at some hand quilting! Let’s get started!
Yardage
Picking the fabrics is such a fun part of any project! I decided to stick with traditional autumnal colors for my pumpkin but you can really make some fun color choices here.
We will start by gathering the 2 ½” x 12 ½” strips and the 1” background color squares. We are going to be snowballing your corners. Before we begin this you will want to lay out your strips in the order you want them to appear on your pumpkin block. This DOES matter in the next step because the two most inner strips will get a special snowballed corner to match our stem!
Take the two outermost strips and snowball all 4 corners.
Once you have snowballed the corners, press towards the background color and trim away the seam excess.
Now take the two remaining strips and snowball the outer corners, and the bottom inner corner, leaving the top inner corner alone for now. Repeat with the pressing and trimming as stated above.
Now take the 1” brown squares, or fabric of your stem, and use those to snowball the remaining corners.
We will now begin snowballing the 10” strips. Take the 1 ½” squares and snowball the corners on one side like shown below.
You are now ready to start assembling your pumpkin block. Start piecing your (4) 12 ½” strips, pressing them to either side as it doesn’t matter in this pattern. Take your (2) 10” strips and sew the (4) 3 ½” x 5 ½” rectangles to the top and bottom of each piece. Now add those to your pumpkin block like shown below.
Stem time! Take the 2 ½” x 3 ½” brown rectangle and sew (1) 3 ½” x 5 ½” rectangle to either side like done in the photo below.
You can now attach this stem section to your pumpkin block.
You will now begin piecing your border strips to the pumpkin block. Grab the (2) 3 ½” x 15 ½” strips and sew (1) to either side of your block.
Now you will add your 2” x 18 ½” strips to the top and bottom of your block.
Now that your block is done, now begins the fun part!! What are you going to do with your block? SO many options!! You could quilt it and turn it into a wall hanging, a hot pad, or make a bunch of blocks and turn it into a quilt. I think I will hand quilt mine and then make it a pillow for my front porch. Have you dabbled in hand quilting? If you have followed me or seen any of my work, you know it is my jam! I love sharing the joy of hand quilting with everyone and I have created a course on hand quilting to show you how easy it is, as well as my favorite tools.
My course is over 2 hours of videos demonstrating how I hand quilt. I have even added a free, exclusive pattern to the course! You can check that out here! There is a free preview so you can see what is offered. You can also check out my site here and see my other patterns and my garden dyed fabrics! And lastly, be sure you follow me on Instagram for more hand quilting love and to see what I am working on next!
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