Sec, my toddler, has decided it’s time for him to move out of his toddler bed and into a bigger bed.  I should have worked on his toddler bed quilt more.  Now it’s going to be a twin-sized quilt.  I’m a little sad I couldn’t make it for him faster, but I’m happy because he’ll get more use out of a twin-sized quilt.

Also, I get to make more bigger pumpkins and/or use a lot more floaty white-on-white background for a more modern look.  I haven’t decided yet, but I’m leaning toward more pumpkins (or maybe adding some machine-appliqued leaves), since too much white on a little-kid quilt is asking for trouble.

I have a cut a bunch more pumpkin bodies, leaf units, and half-stem units (they need background on the other side).  I also have a stack of various-sized white-on-white print pieces.

I’m all ready to get going on this again in the new year, and I plan on powering through until it’s done.  I need to get a cabinet for my sewing machine so I can take advantage of fifteen minutes here and there during the day (Ter’s naptime, after the kids are all asleep, etc.) to sew.  I’m browsing cabinets and sales now.

And the third!  This one’s looking nice and stumpy, like a pumpkin should.  Well, a little more wrinkly than a pumpkin should, buy you know how it is.

The broader stem looks better to me than the thinner on in the second block, but I’m going to keep changing it up.  Same with the leaves.  I like that they’re different for each block.  I think that’s the kind of variety that would interest a toddler.

I love the green fabric for the leaf.  It’s from my eBayed scraps.  I have a feeling those are going to be the scraps that keep on givin’.

I’m thinking three more of these big pumpkins (the very first one is going to go on the back) for a total of five, then I’ll lay them out on the floor (no design wall yet) next to a tape measure and figure out the range of sizes I can use for the smaller pumpkin blocks.

I’m really excited about this project now that I figured out that my seam consistency problem was really my machine’s problem all along.  When I was using my 1/4″ foot, the feed dogs were too wide to both grab my fabric, so it would shoot off to the side as I sewed, even slowly.  I switched back to a regular foot and just moved my needle position so that I can line my fabric up with on the of lines on the needle plate and be sure of a 1/4″ seam.  I also bought a walking foot, which helps.  My lines are still a little curvy, but THAT’s where practice will make (almost) perfect.

This one, I like.  The little stem still reads “apple” to me, but I think this pumpkin is loads cuter than the first one.  It can live on the front of Sec’s toddler bed quilt.

I realize that I like a print for the pumpkin body way more than the solid I used on the first one.  This block is a little smaller, but still close to 12″ square.  I’m planning on making a few more in this size, and then a bunch half or a third of the size, and then floating them all in a scrappy white-on-white background.

I still haven’t decided if I want to quilt it myself.  It’ll be small, so maybe, but I think (hope) it’ll turn out nice and I don’t want to ruin it by learning to free motion quilt on it.  I also don’t want to put it off until after the possible whole-cloth toddler bed quilt for Ter.

The local quilt shop gave me a local long-arm quilter’s number.  Maybe this is the quilt I have her work on first to see if I can go local or if I’ll have to send my big quilts away to get quilted.  That can get expensive, though.

Do you quilt your own quilts?  Use a local long-armer?  Use someone states away?  Let me know in the comments!

With all of the orange fabrics on hand now, I couldn’t put off starting Sec’s pumpkin quilt (I’m calling it “Pumpkin Patch” because, really) any longer, even though I’m a little intimidated by the piecing (and pressing) I’ll need to do for each block.  They’re improvisational and forgiving, but I like to feel I have a handle on what I’m doing.

I don’t like it.  And I couldn’t get it to lay flat for the picture, even after pressing the heck out of it.  That bottom right corner just keeps flipping up.

The pumpkin itself reads too small to me (even though this block is well over 12″), likely because of that HUGE leaf hanging over the edge.  It looks like an orange apple.  I should unpick those seams and cut the extra part of the leaf off, but I just can’t find the energy to do it.  I like the way the scrappy white-on-white background looks, though.

Bleh.  I worked so hard on it and it’s my first real quilt block.  I guess I can just put it on the back of the quilt.  Since it’s a bed quilt, the back won’t show much.

I guess I learned what not to do.  Now, only a bazillion more.  I exaggerate.  I only need half a bazillion more, since it’s a toddler bed quilt.