Thoughts About Pumpkins

I got to spend several hours in the sewing room today - such a good thing!  I'm still ironing scraps and cutting them with the Go! cutter and I've got a really nice stack of squares and strips for my next scrappy quilt.  Then I spent a little while making a couple of Christmas table runners for a tutorial I'm working on - later I'll post that but today I really want to talk about pumpkins. 

Last week I made several pumpkin coasters.  Some I'll mail to friends, some I'll keep.  Are these not the cutest things?  I found a pumpkin applique picture on the internet, printed it off and made a template of it.  Waaaaay too big.  Started over.  Cut the size down and tried again.  Better!  I used a very light weight fusible for both the front and back and ironed one of them to some batting.  I trimmed that, then ironed the other (not sure which was front and which was back!) to the batting on the other side.  I did a blanket stitch around the outside and a "hand quilting stitch" (which looks nothing like hand quilting to me) for the definitions of the pieces of the pumpkin.  Before I did the blanket stitch at the top I put a wool stem in between layers.  When I did the blanket stitch it held the stem in.  Done!  Quick and easy and uses up some scraps.  I should do some leaves the same way....and maybe acorns.

Now that I look at that picture though it occurs to me, wouldn't it make a cute table topper to make a bunch of these and overlap them like they are in the picture and them sew them somehow to each other?  There are 5 in the picture so with 2 or 3 more it would make a nice size table topper.  I need to think about how to do that.

Do you have pumpkins left from Halloween?  I do too.  And it's about time to cook them - I've done that before though not often.  This time I'm going to try canning the pumpkin.  If you've canned pumpkin I'd sure love to hear from you - how you did it, how you liked it, how you used it.  Last year I ran out of pumpkin and I hated that!  I couldn't find it anywhere and every time I asked at the store they said there was a freeze and it was a bad year for pumpkin.  I'm like a little squirrel I guess - I want to store some up. 

Which reminds me of something else.  We have chipmunks.  This is the way my mind works, get used to it ya'll.  I think maybe we have a married couple - a Mrs. and a Mr. Chipmunk.  When I sit in my chair in the den/sunroom I see a chipmunk come running onto the deck, cross it, go down the steps and out into the yard, stuff his/her cheeks with acorns, run back up the steps, across the deck and down to the yard, I guess back to his/her nest to store the acorns.  The deck must be a shortcut.  Over and over and over they do that.  They come and go so fast I think there must be two.  Cute, cute, cute.  I can stand right at the patio door and they are so busy running back and forth they never see me.  If their activity is any sign of the winter to come - well I'm just sayin' those chipmunks are working steady at gettin' ready.  Maybe I better buy another pumpkin.