I love decorating our home with homemade items made by hand. It brings a feeling of warmth and home to any space.
As part of our homeschooling, I get my daughters to develop a monthly craft. With this type of task given, they need to create patterns, test the project and make any necessary changes (re-develop it if necessary), gather supplies needed and then teach us how to re-create it. They love creating fun projects and they always enjoy teaching someone else how to create it. Kids (and even teens) really do like to feel included and “in charge” of something, even as small as creating a fun family craft! It incorporates a variety of skills like planning & bringing those plans to fruition, imagination and creation, sewing, math, not to mention important communication skills, plus much more.
My youngest daughter (we’ll call her ‘H’) came up with these cute rustic pumpkins. You can make them the size I did (and the pattern I have included here for FREE) or make them smaller. A variety of sizes and fabric patterns and colors makes everyone’s unique and a wonderful way to display a bit of fall on a table or mantle.
Let’s get started.
We love to sew, so we always have an assortment of fabrics. We have gathered our fall-time fabrics. You will need roughly 10″ of material but 1/2 a meter/yard (20″) would give you plenty if you would like to make your pumpkin more full.
You will need to cut 1 stem – 2 fabric pieces to sew together. If you leave the fabric together, then you need to cut 1 because you will automatically have 2 pieces needed.
Once you have your stem cut out, place good side to good side and sew, leaving the end open to flip. Clip the corners at an angle. Flip. Once you flip it, stuff with batting or pillow stuffing. Sew the end closed. I chose to use the sewing machine to sew the stem but I did hand sew it closed.
Cut 6 pumpkin pieces out (leave fabric doubled so there’s 2 pieces per pumpkin piece). I did 3 different colors/patterns.
You can also cut with pinking shears for nice edges if you choose to sew on the outside. I left it, so when it frays, it’ll look even more rustic.
Sew your pieces together. We opted to hand sew. For my pumpkin, I left the bad sides together (good sides outward) and I hand sewed all around, leaving it open at one end to stuff. You can also sew good side to good side, flip and stuff. Do this for all 6 pieces. You can cut and sew more pieces if you would like it more full.
Stuff with batting/pillow stuffing. Fold edges in, if needed and sew closed. Do this for all your pieces.
Now that all the pieces have been sewn and stuffed, it is time to assemble the pumpkin.
Take one pumpkin piece at a time and sew it onto the stem.
I just sewed the pumpkin onto the stem in 4 spots and knotted it well.
Keep going all around until all of your pieces have been sewn on. It can get a little tricky, and you may need to squish it to sew it onto the stem. I line it up, see how it looks and then sew/knot onto the stem. I do this for each piece until complete.
All the pieces have been sewn on. It took me a few hours to get to this point, but it is a great activity to do on a chilly fall day or a rainy day.
You can see the edges starting to fray and I am perfectly fine with that. I may even purposely fray it to give it that rustic look. You can also sew this pumpkin with burlap instead of fabric. You can also make various sizes of pumpkins.
I decided that, even though this pumpkin looks great, it definitely needed some embellishments! I twisted some florist wire around a pencil to give it that curly look and then twisted it around the stem. Then I cut out some leaves from fabric (that actually had this leaf patterns on it). I sewed the leaves together and then sewed it onto the stem. You can also use felt for the leaves. I think the embellishments make this look much more like a rustic pumpkin!
Now the pumpkins are ready for display. It adds a little bit of fall time to any display and gives it that warm, homey country feel! A little of the country in the city — exactly what we love!!
Get the FREE pattern here:
enjoy from Our City Homestead to yours