Autumn Part 2 - Wonky Pumpkin

There are pumpkins all over Pinterest at the moment, I have a few on my Autumn board that I want to have a go at, but first I wanted to try and make one out of my favourite fabric - wool. With another of my favourites too - wool 'pennies'.

I cut these sort of petal shapes out a few days ago, and I've been looking at them since thinking they wouldn't work.

But last night I decided to try, and it actually came together surprisingly quickly and easily.

I just machine sewed the petals together, adding one after the other, with wrong sides flat together - I was sewing on the outside so the seams stick out and show.

Here it is just before I sewed on the last petal shape. For the last seam I left a little gap at the top so that I could poke the stuffing inside easily.

Here it is (above) all sewn and then (below) stuffed.

Now for the hand stitching. I cut out wool circles, in browns and a slightly lighter orange, and blanket stitched them on to each 'segment' of my pumpkin - you'll see them in place on the finished photos, I didn't stop to take pictures here, I was too cosily sitting snuggled under a quilt listening to the television at this point! Then I rolled up a small oblong of brown wool for a stalk and secured it with a few stitches, and then stitched down into the stuffing a few times to hold it in place - and it was go get a mug of hot chocolate and take a photo break here!

Nearly finished now. I just hand stitched up the top hole, going through the stalk a few times as I did to secure it a bit better - I have a feeling children will be picking up this pumpkin and twizzling it round by the stalk and probably throwing it around the room too, so it needed to be reasonably sturdy! (And there was a tiny gap where the 'petals' met at the bottom, not a visible hole but a hole where a finger could poke up and pull out the stuffing, so I stitched this up at the same time.) Last of all I cut out a leaf shape from some green wool, stitched a quick vein down the middle for detail, and then sewed it in place next to the stalk.

Here it is finished.

I'm really pleased with how it turned out. And it was very quick too - blanket stitching the pennies was the only part that took any time at all.

So it's going on my Autumn linky whatsit. I think I finally am starting to embrace Autumn, hope you are too and that you're in the mood for some Autumn crafting and making, please share your makes with us below.



I'll be back Monday, see you then, Sally.