Sweater Pumpkins
Make your very own sweater pumpkins in minutes with this simple tutorial! It’s one of the easiest and most affordable fall crafts, plus it’s fun to do with other people for a fun fall girls night!
Servings: 1 pumpkin
Equipment
- 1 embroidery needle
Ingredients
Instructions
Sew the Pumpkins
- If you are using a sleeve or cuff of the sweater, lay the sweater sleeve horizontally across a flat surface. Then make one straight vertical cut from the seam of the sleeve to the top. This will detach the sleeve from the sweater completely.sweater
- Now that the sleeve is detached, you need to make another vertical cut from the seam to the top. This cut needs to be a minimum of four inches away from the first cut.
- Begin by threading your needle and tying the two ends of your thread together so you have double the thread. You will want enough thread to go around the circumference of your sleeve opening one and a half times.embroidery thread
- Next, turn your sleeve fabric inside out so the seam is on the outside.
- Start your running stitch, roughly a quarter inch from the edge of your opening.
- Continue your running stitch all the way around the edge of the of the circle until you get back to where you began your stitch. Don’t sew through both sides of the sleeve at one time!
- Once you get to where you began your stitch, take your two ends and pull them tightly until you close up the circle. Tie off the two ends, making them as tight as possible so that the circle is closed.
- Thread the needle just like you did before and again do a running stitch around the outside of the final opening.
- Once you make it back to where you began sewing gently let the needle and other end of the thread lay to the side while you add the stuffing.
- Stuff the pumpkin with the fluff until it is completely full. You will want it to be as stuffed as you can without having troubles, closing it.pillow stuffing or batting
- Once you have as much fluff as you want in your pumpkin, you will take the thread in your in one hand and gently push the fabric opening closed with the other hand until it is as tight as possible.
- Then you will tie off the end of the fabric again, keeping it as tight as possible.Any loose fabric can be tucked in to the inside of the pumpkin by gently pushing with your fingers or using a pen as needed.
- Cut any loose strings off and flip your fabric inside out so that the rough edges are inside of the pumpkin.
Shape the Pumpkin
- Start by adjusting the stuffing with your hands in your pumpkin as needed so that it is as round as possible.
- Double thread your needle again. You will need enough thread to wrap around your pumpkin three times. The amount will very depending on the size of your pumpkin. You will also need to make an extra large, knot at the end of your thread so that it does not easily go through the bottom of your pumpkin.
- Once your needle and thread are ready to go, start by placing the needle through the top of your pumpkin. Push the needle until you see it come out the center of the bottom of your pumpkin then pull the thread all the way through. Make sure to watch out for your fingers during this step!
- Now take the thread and needle, and go back to the top of the pumpkin and repeat this step, pushing the needle through the top of the pumpkin bottom of the pumpkin. You are basically creating a loop around your pumpkin then pulling it tight to create the pumpkin indent.
- You will continue to do this six times, making sure to place the thread where you want the pumpkin ridges to go as you go along.
- Once you have all of the ridges completed, go back through and tighten them one by one to get the pumpkin look you want. Once the thread is tightened tie it off at the bottom.
Pumpkin Stem
- For the stem, grab your cork, twine, and hot glue. Place a small dab of hot glue at the top edge of the cork, followed with the end of your twine.butcher's twine, corks
- Once the end is secure, begin to wrap the twine tightly around cork until you reach the bottom where you will hot glue it again to secure the twine in place.
- Finally add hot glue to the bottom of your cork and place it firmly onto the top of your pumpkin.
Notes
Make sure to pull the thread tight to get the look of a pumpkin! If you don’t pull it tight enough, it’ll just end up looking more like a ball or oval – not the cute pumpkin you want!
Take your sweater with you to a craft store to choose your embroidery thread or get a large pack of tons of colors like the one I linked before. You want it to match as closely as possible so you don’t see the thread!
Make your cuts carefully based on how large you want your pumpkins. You can often get two small pumpkins out of sleeves if you cut them in the right places! But if you cut first and cut right in the middle, you may end up wasting a bunch of the sweater!
Try out different corks to give the pumpkins different looks. We were lucky enough to have some small, some odd-shaped, and some bigger ones. The variety made them look like different types of pumpkins!
The bigger the pumpkin the harder it will be to make the grooves. The needle can easily get lost in all the fluff with the bigger pumpkins so be careful and avoid having it more than 8 inches wide. Start with a small or medium size pumpkin to practice on.