Crumb Pumpkin Table Topper

I love scrappy quilt projects, and leaning into this origin of the craft brings me lots of joy. Sometimes, though, I think I'm a little too reluctant to part with scraps... at the same time, scraps can be great inspiration for trying something new.

When I made the Reverse Applique Pumpkin Table Runner below, I had some bits and pieces left over that I thought would be fun to play with.

If you didn't see that post and tutorial yet, you can find it here.

I saved the cutout segments of the linen, thinking I might be able to do something fun with them after the runner was finished. I also had a few orange strips left over, some smaller bits of orange fabrics, and some trimmings from the strip sets I made for the pumpkins that were already sewn together.

Crumb quilt block

So I decided to sew them all into a large crumb block and see if I could fuse the cutout segments onto the top of the block. A bit of a negative/positive or yin/yang thing with the pumpkins, scraps, and linen fabrics. 

If you're new to crumb quilt blocks, Leanne Parsons wrote a guest blog with a tutorial a few years back. You can find it here.

I realized very quickly that by fusing the entire linen segments onto the crumb block I was going to cover up rather a lot of the crumb piecing, and I did still want to show that off. So instead of fusing the entire cutouts onto the crumb block, I cut out the insides of the segments so I would have just outlines left, and fused those on to the crumb block. Now you can still see most of the block, but the pumpkin is also still clearly visible.

And no, I didn't keep those cutouts for yet another, even smaller pumpkin block :-)

Quilting design

I didn't add any blanket stitching around the linen shapes for this one, unlike the original table runner, so the first time I'm going to wash it there will likely be some fraying, but I think that'll add a nice touch to the table topper. I did add a quilting line down the middle of each linen piece so that will help in keeping the fabric in place as well.

For the quilting, I just did some simple outlining of the fused pieces and then added echo quilting on the background. I left the insides of the pumpkin unquilted, just like I did with the table runner, so it would puff up a little and stand out more.

Isn't this backing fabric the cutest! I don't remember where or when I got it, but I know it's at least 10 years old and was a leftover bit I had sitting around. I love the mushrooms and think they work perfectly for a fall-themed table topper.