Pumpkins, Pumpkins…who loves Pumpkins?!

Hello friends! I know…how is it been such a drought of blog posts, then two in two days??! Well, I made a promise to get this tutorial up for all those that were interested in making some so here I am. We all need our pumpkin fix, right?

I love pumpkins, tall ones, short ones, orange ones, green ones…and especially those with tendrils, those twisty little things on the stem that add personality to a pumpkin.

Now, I ask you, what do you think about fabric ones with stripes and made with the new Tim Holtz Eclectic Elements for Halloween?

In my opinion, that’s the way to the PERFECT pumpkin!

These were created for the new release of the fabrics on a YouTube LIVE that Tim hosted a few weeks ago. I made 3 different pumpkins in 3 sizes. A small, medium and large and all were put together in the same way but with varying sizes of starting fabrics.

Before I get to the tutorial, let me tell you that I am NOT a seamstress, I am a crafter, a mixed media girl who knows how to sew things without knowing the specific terms, so I am going to share the tutorial in that way. So, if you are someone like me, who knows the basics for sewing and knows your machine, you can make these without having too much sewing experience under your belt. 🙂

I’m doing this a bit different and listing all the supplies that I used prior to starting the tutorial…you will need,

A variety of fabrics… for my pumpkins, I chose 4 different patterns for each pumpkin from the Regions Beyond Fabric Line, Quilt Batting – I like the Warm and Natural, A Sewing Machine, Coordinating Thread, Sewing Scissors, Cutting Mat, Measuring Tool, & Rotary Cutter (this makes the trimming so much easier), Stems for the Pumpkins (I used some that I found on Etsy or you could use real ones or sticks), Crochet Cotton/thick thread and needle, Pipe Cleaners, Dry Beans and Poly-fil stuffing.

Cut your base fabric first. In this case, I chose the orange fabric…the photo below was my Medium size pumpkin. The orange fabric was cut 10″x16″ and the batting approximately 11″x17″.

For the Large Pumpkin I cut the fabric 12″x18″ (quilt batting 13″x19″) and the small 7″x9″ (quilt batting 8″x10″).

I tore strips of fabric from 3 of the coordinating fabrics. These were in varying widths because of tearing, but, I tried to keep the large pumpkins stripes around 1.25″ wide, and the medium pumpkin 1″ wide. I had 9 stripes for each pumpkin. The small pumpkin was striped using thinner scraps in varying sizes and widths.

I laid out the pattern and ironed all the pieces then began sewing the strips into place.

I stitched a zigzag stitch approximately 1/4″ inch from the right and left of the stripes and stitched 1/4″ on each side of the stripe to sew it to the base fabric. This created the striped pattern of the pumpkins.

In the photo below you can see the pattern I had made once the stripes were all stitched to the base fabrics. Once the stripes were sewn on, I cut the excess quilt batting from around the edge of the fabric base.

Then I stitched the two short ends together by sandwiching the pretty sides together and sewing along the edge leaving an approximately 1/2″ seam. You might have more than a 1/2″ seam depending on the torn sizes of your stripes, but that is not important because that will be inside the pumpkin and you can trim off any extra. Just be sure that the stripe pattern on the outside of your pumpkin is lined up to create the repeat space that you want.

In the photo below I have turned the pretty side out in order to make sure that the seam work was lined up with the pattern I had created.

Next, I stitched up the bottom of the pumpkin by sewing a basting stitch/running stitch about 1/2″ from the bottom of the pumpkin using my crochet cotton/black string and needle. Once I had that done, I pulled the stitch to bring the bottom together, then from the inside, stitched it several times to finish the piece. You want to make sure that the bottom is pulled tight and knotted so that it won’t come undone once your beans and stuffing are added to the pumpkin.

Once the bottom was finished, I added about 1-1.5 cups of dry beans…this added weight to the pumpkin to keep it standing tall. Once the beans were in, I stuffed the pumpkin with Poly-fil.

Here’s a peek at the large pumpkin stuffed and waiting to be stitched.

And then, I did another basting/running stitch and pulled the string to shut it but didn’t finish it until I had the leaf, tendrils and stem ready.

And how were those made? Let me show you!

The Leaves…

The leaves were made using a burlap leaf that I found at the dollar tree as a pattern. I traced the leaf onto a piece of computer paper then used it as a guide.

I made a fabric sandwich that consisted of 3 layers…layer 1 = fabric, layer 2 = Quilt Batting and layer 3 = another piece of fabric. Next, I followed the shape of the leaf that was placed on the fabric sandwich, and straight stitched the leaf. Once I had the complete shape of the leaf, I trimmed around the outer edge with a pair of scissors making sure to leave the edges slightly frayed. Once that was done, I randomly added some zigzag stitches around the edge of the leaf.

The leaf below is the leaf that went on the large pumpkin.

And here is the leaf that I made for the medium pumpkin.

You can see that I made a slight variation from the larger leaf and folded the pattern to create a smaller leaf.

The tendrils…

The tendrils or twisty bits were made using a strip of fabric that was approximately 1″ wide by approximately 14″ long. I twisted 2 pipe cleaners together then carefully stitched them within the center of the fabric strip. I used a zigzag stitch and followed along the edge of the fabric until I reached the end of the pipe cleaner.

I made 2 tendrils per pumpkin and varied the fabrics to go with each pumpkin.

To make the tendrils twisty, I wound them around a pencil then slightly pulled them to create a twisted look. Using the needle and thread that I had left after pulling the top of the pumpkin together, I stitched the tendrils onto the top of the pumpkin.

The tendrils were attached first, then I attached the leaf and stem.

The stems…

These are the stems that I purchased from a retailer on Etsy but you’ll notice that the colors weren’t quite right for my project…but never fear, that’s why I love distress, I used my supplies of Distress Paints and Distress Crayons to spiff the stems up. The one on the right is the spiffed up stem, the one on the left was how it came to me.

Easy peasy…

Using my crop-a-dile, I punched a hole into the leaf, then used my scissors to snip it open slightly larger to fit the base of the stem into the hole, then I attached it into the top of the pumpkin using a glue gun.

With that, my pumpkins were complete!

Here is the large pumpkin…

The medium pumpkin…

…and the small pumpkin, with a stick for a stem, you know how I love sticks!

I made the leaves much smaller to fit the top of the small pumpkin.

Thanks so much for stopping by today…I hope you enjoyed the tutorial!

Have a great day!

Creatively yours,

Stacy

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