DIY Monochromatic Fabric Pumpkins

I feel like my sewing machine and I have an ":it's complicated" relationship. I go weeks without touching it and then out of nowhere I can't get my hands off of it for hours on end. Is anyone else like that? Well, I made a few things last night while I was feeling inspired and thought I'd share a tutorial for one today: Monochromatic Fabric Pumpkins. 

Materials:

• Fabric scraps
• Coordinating heavy duty thread (Coats Glace line is perfect for this)
• Poly fill
• Twine
• Ribbon
• Sewing machine & necessary tools

Instructions:

1. Gather fabric remnants in colors that you like. I didn't want to do the whole Halloween shebang so I picked out some neutrals from the Jo-ann's remnant bins. They were all 60% off! Not one single piece cost me more than $3!

2. Cut your fabric into pieces of varying sized rectangles. Mine ranged between 8x16 and 12x22. 

3. Fold your fabric, right sides together, "like a hamburger."

4. Sew straight down the long side of each "hamburger" like so:

5. Using a thread in a coordinating color (I used black to demonstrate), hand stitch a straight line around the bottom of the fabric with about 1/4-1/2 inch seam allowance. DO NOT CUT OR KNOT THE THREAD. 

6. Pull the thread tight and tie a knot into the cinched fabric. At this point you can cut the needle loose.

7. Flip the piece inside out so both the cinched end and the seam are on the inside. Stuff with poly-fill or whatever filling you prefer. I left mine a bit lumpy so they would look more natural. 

8. Just like the bottom seam, stitch another straight line about an inch from the top. Start from the inside out so the knot is hidden. Again, DO NOT CUT THE THREAD just yet. First, tuck the excess fabric at the top underneath the stitches.

9. Pull the thread tight and knot it. Voila! Now you have a finished little ball.

10. As you can see, this doesn't look much like a pumpkin just yet. That's where the twine comes in.  Place the center point of the twine at the top of the ball and pull it around the bottom. At the bottom, twist the strings as if you were wrapping a ribbon around a package and pull tightly back around the top. Repeat the twist once more and pull down around the bottom. Tie a knot on the bottom and trim the excess. 

11. Cut a small length of ribbon and tie around the twine at the top of the pumpkin and that's that!

Despite picking a bland color family, I selected fabrics with many different textures to add interest: lace, gauze, chiffon, fleece, jersey.  I originally wanted to do burlap and lace pumpkins, but thought that might be a bit much with our burlap table runner. You can see that I made a ton of these little guys because I absolutely love pumpkins in the Autumn but they work better with our decor than the orange gourds we normally buy.

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