"Pumpkin Pillow" - and how to make one

Welcome to my blog, Mrs Moen! My name is Nina Lise Moen, and I am a Norwegian quilter, quilt book author, designer and teacher. I enjoy a few other creative outlets as well, but today is all about quilting. Check out my profile and the About tab if you like to know more about me. You will also find tabs for my How To-s, Patterns (English or Norwegian), Free patterns, and Class information (in Norwegian) on the top of the page.

I enjoy making many different kinds of quilts, and most of all I love playing with fabrics, and my scrap bins are often put to use although you could not tell by looking at them. Like many other quilt teachers, I am in the middle of class season right now, for which prep work takes up quite a lot of time. This weekend I’ll be teaching two classes in Kongsberg – the always enjoyable Funky Fowl class and the equally fun Layer upon layer Movement class for which I just finished up the last two samples this week.

Now, life cannot be all about work and no play, can it, so I set aside a few hours to try out an idea. Celebrating Halloween is not a Norwegian tradition although we have quite a few kids that go trick and treating, however, I have always wanted to make a Halloween quilt (what can I say, it’s orange) so here is my brand new Pumpkin Pillow.

He did not turn out as planned; the orange fabric wasn’t big enough and the eyes and nose are crammed together, but he seems to not care at all. Just look at that grin. Who wouldn't like to go out in the world with such a confidence!

The colour orange is a hard one to capture, isn’t it, and although I dread flashlight pictures, they are the ones that show off the colours most correctly on a dark and rainy fall day.

Also, adding white helped a little. For more tips on photographing colours, see this post.

The spooky house-and-tree-teeth turned out fun.

And I am very happy with the appliqué stitching – orange zigzag stitches with straight black stitches inside. Makes the edges pop.

Flames in the eyes and nose.

You’ll find a tutorial posted here at my tutorial blog, Mrs Moen How to’s, in case you would like to make a Pumpkin Pillow on your own. Unfortunately I did not take too many pictures during the process, but I have filled in the gaps with illustrations.

You have no idea how many times I typed pumpkin wrong writing these two posts. PumPkin, pumPkin, pumPkin; seriously, how hard can it be!

Blogger’s Quilt Festival Stats:
Finished quilt measures : 16"*16"
Special techniques used : Make it work appliqué
Quilted by : Myself
Best Category : Appliqué quilt

Thanks for stopping by; you can see the rest of the Blogger’s Quilt Festival here.

Have fun, and as I'll be away for a short week and might not catch you before then - Happy Halloween.)