Pumpkin
A familiar symbol of autumn abundance, the Pumpkin is an essential part of Thanksgiving feasts in Canada and the United States. The seeds were taken back to Europe by explorers and by the end of the C17th it had found it's way into our fairy-tales, as Cinderella's magical carriage.
The pumpkin block from my first sampler
EDIT: Although the sew-along has finished, you can still use the weekly posts as a guide and sew with a group of friends. You can find the Spellbound Sampler pattern book here and on Amazon, or the PDF Pattern Bundle here.
CUTTING...
Follow steps 1-6 in your pattern...
I have played with the layout of my Spellbound Sampler - as I mentioned here - so I could incorporate an elegant white pumpkin. So this week I was cutting into my dark background fabric.
Again, I didn't bother cutting it down into a fat quarter but cut 2½" and 1½" strips, setting aside any trimmings for future blocks.
PIECING THE PUMPKIN SEGMENTS...
Follow steps 7-10 in your pattern...
We will just be using one technique in this block. It's what I always think of as a snowballed corner, because I first saw it used to make Snowball blocks.
You will draw a diagonal line on the back of a square, as indicated in the pattern, place it on the corner of your block - pinned in place if you’d prefer - and then sew on that line. The square is then pressed in half on the stitched line to form a triangle at the corner, which creates the curved effect on the Pumpkin segments.
Finally the back layers are trimmed away. The next pair of segments are made using the same technique.
Take a moment to check the placement, especially if you changing the colour values in your block (ask me how I know...).
PIECING THE STEM AND LEAF...
Follow steps 11-12 in your pattern.
Spot the deliberate mistake *cough* I seemed to have pieced the top of my stem the 'wrong' way, but as it didn't really make any difference to the block I left it.
...ASSEMBLING THE BLOCK
All of the elements of my block laid out and ready to assemble
Follow steps 13-14 in your pattern.
The back of the fully assembled block, showing seam direction
And you're done. A slightly less challenging block than last week’s, in fact it’s as easy as...pie (sorry). We'll be using the snowball technique again next week when we create the Moon & Star block, as well as adding our first touches of embroidery. Nothing tricky, I promise...
Nicola xx