Pumpkins!

It’s Fall and out come the pumpkins. I don’t really decorate for Halloween much, but I definitely love the Fall colors and decorations, including the pumpkins. Here are a few ways I’ve used and crafted pumpkins in my Fall decor. I’ll start with my latest acquisition. I purchased this guy from a local antique “mall.” I thought he was a steal for $22.00. I love everything about him, including the color.

Some of my favorite pumpkins are the easiest to make. I found a sort of stretchy faux velvet at Joann’s and then created the pumpkins by cutting circles out of the fabric. I used doll stuffing that I bought on Amazon (here) to stuff them. I like the way it looks and it feels much better than the cheaper stuffing. It doesn’t clump up and it stays smooth. I used grey, gold, and orange fabric. On the grey and gold, I used old silverware bent to create the look of a stem. I used gold Rub’n Buff to make the gold pumpkin’s “stem” gold. Thrifted leaf jewelry, tassels, and ribbon top them off. I used some thrifted “sugared” fruit and foliage on the smaller stacked pumpkins.

The next photos are my hand knit pumpkins. Basically, you are knitting in the round increasing and decreasing to make the shape of the pumpkin. I found self-striping yarn and used colored yarns to create the effects on several of the pumpkins. Some of them have string sewn through the center and wrapped around to encourage the shape and some just rely on the pattern in the knitting. I used the same stuffing on these that I used on the velvet pumpkins. Add your stuffing before your opening gets too small at the end. I purchased wooden cabinet knobs from Lowes, added a tiny eye hook to the top, and filled in the hole in the bottom for the stems. The eye hooks allowed me to attach the knobs to the pumpkins like a shanked button. Here are a couple of ways I have displayed my hand knit pumpkins.