No-Sew Fabric Pumpkin

Well, I don't have much time this week, which is something I'm sure MANY of you mamas can relate to! So I have a quick project for you today, not even an hour, and no sewing required. That's right, even cleanup will be quick for this one!

The No-Sew Fabric Pumpkin

Time: 20 minutes

Supplies:

• 18" square of pumpkin-appropriate material. I used a rusty orange twill. This makes a smallish pumpkin, it's around 6" in diameter, so scale up as you like.
• 1 lb. beans. Or some stuffing of your choice. I wanted something heavy enough for it not to be toppling over. (Plus I'm out of polyfil... but I had a bag of beans.  And if you recall, we always try to use what we have!)
• Scraps of felt for leaves and coordinating yarn/string/twine.
• Scissors.

Optional but helpful in construction:

• Plastic wrap.
• Rubber bands.
• Hot glue gun.

I don't know if I'm being paranoid, but I want the beans to stay dry and not get gross later. So I wrapped them up in 2 layers of plastic wrap first. If you have another form of stuffing, this step is totally unneccessary. It might be unnecessary anyway, but I figure, better safe than sorry.

Use a rubberband (or if you don't have any on-hand, a piece of yarn would probably work fine too) to gather up a small point in the center of your square. This is the center underside. By creating pleats/ruffles here, your whole pumpkin will have more pleats instead of being smooth on the lower half. But test it out both ways of you want and see which look you prefer.

Put your bag-o-beans in with the rubberband side on the inside and draw the sides up, arranging your pleats as you like.

See? Pleaty.

Close with a rubber band. Once again, not essential, but having the rubbery surface will help things grip better.

Cut off your top to whatever stump-size you like the looks of. I closed off with a second rubber band to keep it nice and gathered. I tied a bit of yarn around the bottom so I could begin attaching my felt leaves.

Cut some leaves to the shape you like, leaving a nice long tail so they can be wrapped into your stump for security, and over the top of the stump where yarn-wrapping isn't really practical. I am using brown yarn, so I made the brown leaf tail long and fattish, because I want it to wrap all the way over the top of the stump with fabric to spare. Doing this will ensure I don't have ends poking out at the top later.

Tie them on how you like them so that everything is fairly secure. See how the brown leaf tail will cover over the stump?

I used my hot glue gun to glue the brown felt around the stump. You can probably accomplish the task without hot glue (or any glue, for that matter) and just do a really snug wrap, but securing it now should make wrapping much easier without having to hold those edges down.

Then, I tied a bit of yarn underneath the leaves, and began wrapping the long end around the stump, wrapping upward.

Honestly, I don't know how much yarn I ended up using, since I unraveled it right from the package-thingy (what's yarn called? A spool? I have no idea.) but I would estimate it was a good 6 feet or so? When I got to the top of the stump, I wrapped it back downward, until I got back to the bottom, where I tied the yarn off with that loose end from the beginning. I trimmed the ends.

And that's it! I had myself a finished pumpkin.

Now that I know it works (because sometimes you worry when it's just an idea in your head, you know) I would like to try a funky pumpkin with a bold pattern.

I'd also like to make a bigger one to set beside this little guy too. But now I'm out of both beans and polyfil... Yeeha, I am now allowed to shop again! ;)

I link to these fabulous parties!

*This tutorial is also featured at AllFreeHolidayCrafts.com!*