Fabric Pumpkins for Autumn!

!!!!!

Yes, this post needs exclamation points. Why, I'm not sure, maybe I need more excitement in my life.

A few days ago I mentioned I had made some crafty pumpkins. Over at Small Fry & Co. there is this super adorable and easy tutorial for making pumpkins out of sweaters. My sister Jillyn sent it to me and I immediately fell in love with the simple shabby chicness of it. Which is funny, because my decor style is more Asian zen than country cottage. (Tangent, do you think I could ever get the two styles to live harmoniously? Because I really love them both...)

Once I decided to make them I took inventory of my sweater stash to see if I could recreate this. And I hated the combination of sweaters I was willing to cut. Then I remembered I have tons of knit scraps from my friend who makes some amazing nursing covers. So that's what I used.

I sewed tubes of fabric in varying sizes, then ran gathering stitches around the tops and bottoms. After that I cinched the bottoms closed and sewed them shut on my machine. In my opinion, the less hand sewing the better!

After the bottoms were secure I poured in some gravel for weight and then stuffed with Polyfil. I found to get a good rounded pumpkin you stuff it, then stick your hand in the middle of the stuffing and make a hole. Then wad some more Polyfil to medium density and put it into the hole you made.

Gather the tops of the pumpkins and knot the tails. Hand sew the tops shut, I used a ladder stitch. Then grab some yarn and stitch the top and bottom together as described in the Small Fry tutorial. This is how they looked after all of that:



Oooo, dreamy lighting. Because I wasn't working with sweaters I was missing the prominent ribbing that make the pumpkin stripes. Since BuggaBoo has been on a paint-everything kick I decided to paint these babies with watered down gold acrylic paint. I was a selfish mommy and let him help paint only one because he wasn't painting how I wanted him to. Because the paint was so watery the pumpkins were still moist even after drying all night. So they took a quick trip in the dryer with some towels. I'm surprised they survived the journey.

Then we added the stems and leaves and got this:


Can you tell which one BuggaBoo painted? And can I say that I love living in an area where finding lichen- and moss-covered sticks is as easy as walking into your front yard? Here are some detail shots:




So, I plan on leaving these up until it's time to break out the Christmas decorations. Especially after all that work.