Fabric Pumpkins

Hi everyone!  I shared this tutorial with Angie over at Treasures a couple weeks ago.  But I thought being out of town that this would be a great time to post it here for those of you who missed it!

I found these on another blog but her tutorial was very limited on information so I made my own with lots of pictures for you to follow!  I'm hoping these will be simple and easy to follow instructions for our beginner seamstresses out there.

Lets get started shall we? Here is your supply list...

3 or 5 fat quarters in different/coordinating fall colors and prints.  A fat quarter is typically a piece of fabric pre-cut 18x21in.  You can often find fat quarter bundles at your fabric store already in coordinating fabrics.

1 fat quarter for your pumpkin stems
Scissors or Rotary blade

1 bag of Poly fill (stuffing)

As much or little coordinating ribbon, cording or other embellishments you might want

Here you see I have 5 different fabrics I found all together in a bundle at Walmart. 

Next you're going to want to cut these in half.  Some of them long ways and some short ways.  This will allow you to have pumpkins in different heights.  You can make them any size you want really. But you will need two piece of each fabric cut to the same size for the front and back of each pumpkin.

I chose a neutral color for my stems but you can have a green or brown as well.  I cut mine about 6x6 in.

Here you will sew them up in the shape of a long stem then cut the excess off from around the edges.  Turn right side out.

Now you will stuff them with your Polly fill.  I use a strait pin to close them off so the stuffing doesn't come out in the mean time.  Set these aside for now.

Now take all the pieces of beautiful fabric you cut earlier and fold them in half.  You will sew a pattern like you see below on the fold.  Then trim the excess.

This picture is a bit hard to see but when you open it up it will look like this.  See how it has a pucker?

Okay here is the tricky part but not too tricky.  Keep your seam ripper handy in case you goof.  Oh and the seam ripper is the little tool that looks like a miniature pitch fork kind of.

You will have two identical pieces like you see above.  One is the bottom and one is the top.  Lay the bottom one down and place your stem with the open side facing the edge of your fabric like so...

Now you will lay your top piece on top, right sides together.  Kind of a stem sandwich if you will.  You want to remove the strait pin from your stem and re-pin through all three pieces of fabric to keep the stem in place.  I choose to free hand my pumpkin shape because I want them to vary in shape just how they grow in nature but if you want to you can use your strain pins to make the shape of your pumpkin.

Start at the bottom of the pumpkin and work your way around with a strait stitch leaving an opening about 4-6in at the bottom.  This is where you will stuff the pumpkin.  Don't forget to back stitch when you start and stop sewing to secure your thread.

Now forgive this next step as I show 6 bags but I mis-counted because I was only doing 5 pumpkins heehee.  Mommy brain strikes again!

Once all your pumpkins have been sewn cut the excess and turn right side out.  Now you can stuff them.  When they are all stuffed up you will need to fill some snack size zip locks with beans or rice.  These will go on the bottom of the pumpkins before you stitch them up so they can stand up right =)

So go ahead and slip those beans into the bottom and hand stitch your hole closed.  If you are handy with your sewing machine you may be able to sew it up on there like I did.

Here is what you get when you're all finished!

I ran short on stuffing so I only have three to show you right now.

Do you love them?  I think they are perfect for any fall theme and being able to choose your fabrics makes them even better!  Now you can use your ribbon, cording, left over fabric or what not and tie them around the stems!

Thanks again for coming by to check out my fabric pumpkins.  I hope you enjoy them!