Pumpkin Tutorial repost

We shared this tutorial with you last year but had such a great response we decided to share it again!!  I hope you enjoy it and make lots of little funky pumpkins.

I made these 3 for the shop 

I know I promised this a while ago but I have had some issues with my camera.  Then the iPod broke at the shop and my camera/phone became the iPod.  So here it is!!  I  love how these turned out,  I bought a set of these pumpkins probably about 15 years ago,  needless to say the fabric was heinous and so I decided to re-create them.  You could make these ANY size you wanted but I did a small, medium and large.  I didn't use traditional fabrics but you could use anything you like.

Step one:  Cut 2 squares the same size.  Large 13" x 15". medium 9" x 11", and small 6" x 9".  I cut the stem in a 2" x 2 1/2"  and then made it stem shaped.

Then fold one of your squares right sides together in half and make a small dart ( this is a tuck in the fabric that starts wider and gets smaller, like a dart in a blouse.)  I started half inch in and went down 3 

inches.  Do this for both front and back of your pumpkin.

Mark it with a pencil and sew on your line.  Trim and press.  Do this for both sides of your pumpkin.

Dart markings

On the top of the pumpkin round off your corners.  Mark them with a pencil.

I just rounded the corners

Now for the stem, there are a couple of ways to do this, on one of my pumpkins I rolled a piece of fabric and glued it on to the top of the pumpkin.  On the others I chose my stem fabric and marked it in a stem shape roughly 2" x 2 1/2".   Sew a quarter inch around your markings, trim excess, and turn and lightly stuff.

My stem shape!

One of my stems

Now pin right sides of pumpkin together sandwiching in the stem at the top of the pumpkin.  Sew all the way around  making sure to catch the entire bottom of the stem in your seam. Leave an opening at the bottom of your pumpkin so that you can stuff it.

Pin stem in between front and back of pumpkin

Trim corners on the top corners only.

This next step will be tricky for some,  (I hope I do okay explaining it to you.)  You are now going to make the bottom of your pumpkin so it will stand up, if you have made purse before this step will be easy for you.  You take the bottom seam and match it to the side seam (like picture A.)  then sew across that and trim (photo B.)

bottom photo A

trim off the excess

This is what the bottom will look like

Turn your pumpkin right side out, stuff tightly with polyfill as tight as you like and whip stitch the bottom closed.

 Now comes the fun part!  Embellishing!!!   I love to embellish so I tend to go overboard.  You can embellish as little or as much as you like.  I tied several ribbons, and some fun trims we have at the shop and glued one of our fun buttons on it.  Have fun with this and I  promise you won't be able to make just one!!  Below are a few of my finished pumpkins!!  Enjoy!

this is my largest one

my smallest one

Have fun!!

Nadine