Hi everybody, it’s Jenny from the Missouri Star Quilt Co. And I have such a fun project for you today. This is one of those projects that I started. I had a pattern all planned out and right in the middle of it, the fabric didn’t want that. It wanted something else. And this is the outcome. We have the Pumpkin Spice quilt. So let’s take a look at this. Isn’t this fun? Now this is so much easier than it looks. And I can’t wait to show you. But it’s just so fun. And I love when the fabric speaks to me. So to make this quilt we used one packet, one roll, this would be a roll if they rolled it. But it’s a packet. Of 2 ½ inch strips. And it’s Brandywine Batiks by Kathy Engle for Island Batik. And it’s just a really fun line. And originally, again, I did not think this was going to be a pumpkin quilt. But when I got going it just wanted pumpkins so bad. So that’s what we did. Alright so you’re going to need a roll of those which is 40. You’re going to need a ¼ yard of accent fabric and that’s for all your little stems and your leaves right around here on all the pumpkins. Now I actually got away with kind of scraping it up and using some of my 2 ½ inch pieces, leftover pieces for those. But to be safe if you want to make sure you have them all, get that ¼ yard. Alright you’re going to have background fabric which is this white right here, this cream and you’re going to need 2 ¾ yards for that. But it takes, you know, it does so much and it just fills out the blocks. You’re also going to need for your outer border is 1 ¼ yards and this is a five inch border. For your backing right here you’re going to need 5 ¾ yards. And look at the pattern we quilted it with, the pumpkin pattern. It’s such a darling pattern. Alright so you’re also going to need a ½ yard of Heat N Bond and that’s going to come in when we start putting on all those little stems. So let me show you how to make this because this is really fun.

So what you’re going to do is you’re going to take your orange strips out and you’re going to make pumpkins first. And we are going to sew four together. And I’m going to sew these in sets of two. So I have two sewn right here and I have two sewn right here. And these are just quarter inch seams all of the way down. And I want to put these together so they go, you know, I’m not too matchy and my colors are different. And so I’m just going to lay these on top of each other and sew a seam right down this side. And it’s going to be a quarter inch seam and then that will make me have four sewn together. So let’s just go ahead and sew down this side. Alright I always go about like ten inches and then I re-align, re-align it up to make sure it’s matching really nice. Alright. So we’re done with that. And we now have four 2 ½ inch strips sewn together to make a strip set like this. Now we’re going to press these. And when you press these, I like to press from the top first to make sure that, to make sure that there are no little creases or tucks. And so I’m going to press from the top like this. And you’re going to do your whole set. And then I’m going to flip it over and make my seams go the way I want them to. Now I like to press them kind of all going all the same direction just mostly because that’s easy. And you might have a few stubborn spots because of the way you pressed it on the top but you can make those behave with a little bit of steam and heat. Alright.

Alright now what we’re going to do, and this is the fun part. I think this is the fun part. We’re going to fold this in half. And every strip set, you’re going to have four of these strip sets, and every strip set we’re going to do the same thing to. So line it up, I’m going to move this stuff out of the way, just push it up here a little bit. So line this up right here on your board. Make sure your strips are together and you’re lined up nice and straight. And then what we’re going to do first is we’re going to clean up this first edge. So I”m going to lay my, see how this is off right here. I need to make sure that this is one straight edge because this is going to be the beginning of a pumpkin. Alright. So we’re just going to toss that. So now what we’re going to do is we’re going to cut two five inch strips from here like this. We’re going to cut two six inch strips, so I’m going to move this over here. And we’re going to count, one, two, three, four, five, six, right here. And then two nine inch pieces. So now we’re going to count to nine, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Alright, so we have two fives, two sixes, and two nines. Now this little piece here on the end, I’m going to take it right now and I’m going to cut it into a 2 ½ inch strip because I’m going to end up using those little pieces in my border. So see here I have little pieces of orange and things like that so I was able to capture some of those off the end of my strip to just pop in there and make it fun. Alright.

So here’s our six inch ones and our five inch ones. Now these five inchers, we’re going to start with these and these are, they are going to become, we’re going to take these apart in half. And so I’m just going to take these apart. Don’t try this at home. Anyway you can try it at home if you want. Now batik fabric tends to be a little bit, a little bit fragile so be careful when you do that. You can always use your seam ripper and take it right apart. But what we’re going to have now is we’re going to have a pumpkin, two little five inch pumpkins and one is going to go sideways and one is going to go tall like this. So this is how we, so hopefully you can see this. So one is going to go sideways and one is going to go tall. So you can see right here. So here’s one. So here’s the sideways and here’s the tall pumpkin over here. And so that’s going to be the same with the six inchers but we don’t have to take those apart. One is going to be sideways like this and one is going to be tall like this. . Our nine inch ones we’re going to do the same thing with. And mostly because it’s not going to be that much difference on the nine, it’s about ½ an inch difference. But it gives, you know, with the stripes going different ways it really adds to the quilt.

Alright so the first thing you’re going to do with your blocks is you’re going to snowball them. So we’re going to start with our fives. And I have a bunch of these blocks done but on the five inch ones I used inch and a half snowball corners. So I have some strips cut from my background fabric. This is an inch and a half strip. And what I’m going to do is I’m going to fold it in half twice like this and then I’m just going to make my little cut. Where’s my little ruler? Oh here it is. And then I’m just going to trim off my selvedge edge like this. And then I’m going to come over here and cut inch and a half and because it’s already an inch and a half strip these are going to be square. And we’re going to put one of these on all four corners like this. So we’ll just lay them on here. And you can draw the line or iron it. I have sewn so many of these that I can just eyeball from here to here and stay nice and straight. So that’s what you have to remember. For the five inch pumpkins no matter which direction they’re going you’re going to snowball all four corners. For the six inch ones we’re going to do two inch squares. So I have a two inch strip that I’ve cut here. And again it’s folded in fourths. And I just want to cut off my selvedge edge like this. I’m going to cut it at the half mark. And then come over here and cut two. So then this one is going to have the two inch. And then big one over here, these are 2 ½ inch squares. So those are your measurements for snowballing your corners. And I’ll just go ahead and cut this one so you can see what I’m doing here. Line up my selvedges a little better. Make a cut, 2 ½. And then I can just lay my 2 ½ ruler right along the edge. And then I’ve got four of these for the big pumpkin.

Alright so let’s start with the, let’s start with this little guy. And I’m not going to do all of these because it’s the same thing no matter what size it is. But I’m going to line my square up in the corner and then I’m actually just going to start sewing and then I’m going to look for where it’s going. And it’s such a short little seam, these are actually great ones to practice on. You can put a pin in there if you want. You can draw the line, whatever is easiest for you. You can even iron the line. And then this over here. Keep going. And then around to this side. So you do this to all your pumpkins no matter whether they’re going up or down or whatever, you’re going to do it to all your pumpkin blocks. I’m just trimming these off a quarter of an inch from my seam line. And then I’m going to press it back. Let’s see if I can make sure this is nice and pressed back. There we go. Now on every block the construction is exactly the same but the measurements are going to be a little different.

So all your blocks are going to be bordered with inch and a half strips. So here’s a nice six inch pumpkin and I’ve turned it upright, the other one will be like this. And so you have to know where the top is because you’re only going to put this little border on three sides. So let’s go ahead and do that with our little one right here. I’m going to cut my selvedge off. And I want my pumpkin, this one to be going this way. And I did them half and half. I just divided my little five inch ones in half. And half of them I stood up and half of them I laid down. So I’m just going to go along this edge right here, sew down the side. And then I’m just going to, because it’s such a small distance I’m just going to cut it here like this. And I’m going to sew down the other side. And because the construction is the same on all the blocks this gets to be really, you know, it gets to be really easy because you do the same thing over and over again. You just have to remember which side is your top because you’re going to have to put a bigger piece on there than just the inch and a half. The inch and a half just frames it up. And then the next piece we’re going to add is going to make it a block. Alrighty. So now let’s go iron this. Alright so this is our block right here. And now we have to make it fit.

So what I decided when I did this was that all of my pumpkins had to end up on a block that was the same size so that we could make rows. So each of these, each of the size pumpkin has a different piece of fabric that you’re going to cut to put in the top. And you’re going to do them so your little ones will have all the same and your medium ones will have all the same and your big ones will have all the same. And you’re just going to put that piece on and then you can sew your rows together to make it all go. So this pumpkin right here, these tiny ones they all have to have a piece added to them that makes them all the same size. The unfinished size we’re going for is 12 ½. So this pumpkin right here I’m going to use a seven inch piece. This one I’m going to use, I’m going to use a 7 ½ inch piece. This one I’m going to use a 5 ½ inch piece. And when I was making, this basically what I did was I cut out, I cut it a little bigger so I could cut it down. The exact measurements are in the pattern. But I just wanted it a little bit bigger to make sure that I had enough room because you know I was making it for the first time. So what I did was I got my piece cut. I’m going to press this. It has too many wrinkles in it to sew. So let me just press this edge right here. It’s amazing what pressing does. You know sewing with wrinkly fabric can be really tough.

Alright so what I’m going to do is I’m going to lay the top which is this part of my pumpkin on my strip. And I would take all the ones that are going sideways, I would take all of them and put them all on this strip and sew them at once. So what we’re going to do here, oop I got my mat caught on there. I’m going to come down here and I’m going to sew these on. And then I would just add another pumpkin and add another pumpkin. But since we have this one here, then what I’m going to do is I’m going to let my pumpkin be the pattern and I’m just going to trim it like this. Then I’ll press it open and then this is one pumpkin block. So let’s press that up. So now is the time to add your stems, your leaves and things like that. Now to be honest when I made this, I put the whole quilt together and I had it all up here and it had no stems or leaves on it. And so people were looking at it and they were just like, oh that’s a really interesting ball quilt, you know. So the stems and leaves add a lot. And so I actually added them after my quilt was done and that meant I had to wrangle the whole quilt to machine piece these. So don’t do that. Do it by the block, do it by the block. That works best.

Alright so what I did for my stems was I took a strip out of my pack of the 2 ½ like this. And I cut me a 2 ½ inch strip of the Heat N Bond which is right here. And I’m going to iron this to my strip. So you know batik doesn’t really have a side that is right or wrong so this is just, either side will work is what I’m trying to say. Alright so I’m going to press this. And I, we’re going to put a couple of little stems and things on there for you to trace but honestly this was really fun for me. And so basically I would draw my pumpkin stem. And you can do it from the side like this if you want a little short one. And I just basically drew like a, it almost looks like a little tumbler template which you could use but I wanted them all different. So some of them I did with a curve and I just did this. And then my leaves were all just like this. So let me show you how good this looks because it comes out way more fun than you think. Alright so we’re going to go with this kind of straight stem on this one. I’m going to curve it a little on the bottom. So I even changed that after I cut it. We’ll stick that on here like this. And then it needs a little leaf so I’m going to cut a little leaf. And for my leaves I actually kind of accordion fold them and cut a whole bunch at once. And I used pieces off different strips too. So you can see like this one and this one are different. This one, you know, I just used different pieces. One of the things I’ve learned in painting is that somewhere there’s a pumpkin that’s going to look like this. And I like that idea. Alright so what I’m going to do here, I’m going to lay this right on top of this pumpkin. I’m going to put this leaf right here on the edge and I’m going to press that down just like that. Give it a good press, stick it on there. Now I would take this to my sewing machine and I would blanket stitch right around that stem right at this point. And so it will just, it will just lay on there so nice and it’s way easier to work with. So you can blanket stitch. You can do the tiny zig zag. You can straight stitch it. Whatever you want, you just need to hold that on there so that it, you know, so that you can stitch it down so that when you put your blocks together it all stays together. So this is our basic block that we’re making. And we’re just going to make them different sizes.

So to show you what I mean, like this one right here, this is the same, this is the same block as this one right here. They’re both the same if we line them up this way but this one is going to lay in my quilt this way and this one is going to lay this way. So you’re going to need different size pieces, fabric pieces for the top and for the bottom. And so you just want to measure a piece that is going to make it 12 ½ at the end of the day. And you can see I snowballed all of them first and then bordered them but left the top. And you can see from the quilt, you’ll want to follow, if you want to follow the way we did it. So on the quilt we have two little pumpkins here, one is up and one is down. This is the six inch strip and it’s sideways. A little one. This is an eight inch strip up and down and this is a little five and a little six inch strip again but it’s tall. And so just by turning them you get a whole different size of pumpkin and it makes it really, really cute. Now our rows, when I got them together they weren’t all exactly the same length. So what you’re going to need to do is add a piece of fabric. I took my longest row because they’re all going different directions I didn’t know what size they were going to come out. Took your longest row and I matched all my other rows to that longest row. And so like this one has a little 2 ½ inch or three inch piece over here. This one has a 2 ½ inch piece. And this one doesn’t have anything because it’s a nice long, it was my row that I measured everything else from.

Now for all these borders. I did the same thing with these that I did with my, with my pumpkins. I sewed four of these together. You know I just picked my random colors. And I was really concerned about the pink in the fall, you know, the blues and greens and how it would all work out. And I just, really I’ve fallen in love with this because I just think it’s so darling. So you’re going to sew four of these together like this. And once you get them sewn you’re going to cut them into 2 ½ inch strips, all of them. And then you’re just going to sew them together end to end to end to make these little borders, I mean these little sashings and then these borders. So every pumpkin had one to it, a sashing added to it in between and that’s how we put the row together. And then we put this row in between. Now the border fabric I had was blue. I thought it was beautiful. The back is bright pink and it just came together so nice. And this is the Pumpkin Spice quilt because everybody loves pumpkin spice during this time of year. And I hope you give this a try and have fun with it. And we hope you enjoyed this tutorial from the Missouri Star Quilt Co.