Crochet Pumpkin Tutorial

Crochet_pumpkin_lg

For reasons I won’t speak of just yet (but they are good, not bad!), I have to take a temporary break from blogging – there’s a lot going on for the next couple of weeks and I’m just not sure how often I’ll be able to blog.  So, I’m sharing a tutorial to keep you all busy!  Here are instructions for a pumpkin I crocheted last year – feel free to experiment with different yarn types and colors.  It is a pretty forgiving pattern, because if your pumpkin doesn’t end up perfectly round, its completely OK as there are all different shapes and sizes of pumpkins.  Feel free to email me if you have any questions.  Enjoy!

Crochet Pumpkin

Materials:

1 skein Monteza Classic Elite llama/wool blend yarn in
pumpkin orange (I used #3885), or similar bulky wool yarn
1 ball Crystal Palace Kid Merino yarn in brown (I used
#4673), or similar mohair/wool/nylon blend yarn in complimentary color
1 skein Monteza Classic Elite llama/wool blend yarn in olive
green or brown, or similar bulky wool yarn for the stem
Size H/8 crochet hook
Large eye needle
Fiberfill for stuffing
Optional: Dark green
wool felt, olive green pipe cleaners, small orange button with 4 holes

This project uses only one stitch, the single crochet (sc)
for the entire pumpkin, working in rounds, making it a doable project for
beginners. The stem incorporates a few
half-double (hdc) and double (dc) crochet stitches, but once you get the basic
stitches down, the rest is a breeze. For
instructions on basic crochet stitches, check out any crochet book from the
library, ask a friend or relative to show you, or go to our website www.theweedpatchstore.com.  (Feel free to use this pattern for your own personal use, to make your
own decorations or a gift to a friend, but you may not reproduce or
create for selling.)

Instructions:

For the pumpkin (using the orange wool and brown mohair
yarns together):

Foundation and Round
1:
 ch 2, then 6sc in 2nd
ch from hk. Place marker by placing a
stray length of yarn of a different color in the last stitch you did, so you
know where the round ends.

Round 2: 2 sc in
ea st around (12 sts total). Move marker
to last stitch (continue moving with each round)

Round 3: [1 sc, 2sc in next st] repeat around (18 sts)

Round 4: [2 sc, 2sc in next st] repeat around (24 sts)

Round 5: [3 sc, 2sc in next st] repeat around (30 sts)

Round 6: [4 sc, 2sc in next st] repeat around (36 sts)

Round 7: [5 sc, 2sc in next st] repeat around (42 sts)

Round 8: [6 sc, 2sc in next st] repeat around (48 sts)

Round 9: [7 sc, 2sc in next st] repeat around (54 sts)

Round 10: [8 sc, 2sc in next st] repeat around (60 sts)

Round 11:  [9 sc, 2sc in next st] repeat around (66 sts)

Round 12: [10 sc, 2sc in next st] repeat around (72
sts)

Round 13: [11 sc, 2sc in next st] repeat around (78
sts)

Rounds 14 – 27: sc in each st around (78 sts each time)

Round 28: [12 sc, skip next st] repeat around (72 sts)

Round 29: [11 sc, skip next st] repeat around (66 sts)

Round 30: [10 sc, skip next st] repeat around (60 sts)

At this point, stuff the pumpkin with fiberfill (not too
stuffed!), and continue adding bits of stuffing as you complete the closing
rounds.

Round 31: [9 sc, skip next st] repeat around (54 sts)

Round 32: [8 sc, skip next st] repeat around (48 sts)

Round 33: [7 sc, skip next st] repeat around (42 sts)

Round 34: [6 sc, skip next st] repeat around (36 sts)

Round 35: [5 sc, skip next st] repeat around (30 sts)

Round 36: [4 sc, skip next st] repeat around (24 sts)

Round 37: [3 sc, skip next st] repeat around (18 sts)

Round 38: [2 sc, skip next st] repeat around (12 sts)

Round 39: [1 sc, skip next st] repeat around (6 sts)

Round 40: [1 sc, skip next st] repeat around (3 sts)

Finishing: make one
more sc in middle st to close the opening, clip yarn and weave in the tail.

For the stem (using the green or brown wool yarn):

Foundation and Round
1:
 ch 3 (counts as 1st
hdc), 11 hdc in 3rd ch from hk (12 sts total, incl. ch 3)

Round 2: sc in
each st around (12 sts)

Repeat round until the stem reaches desired length, approx 2
– 3”.

Next round: ch 4 (counts as first dc), 2 dc in each sc
around (24 sts total, incl. ch 4)

Last round: 1 sl st, 1 sc, ch 5, 1 sc in 3rd
ch from hk, 1 hdc in next ch, 1 dc in next ch, sl st in next 2 sc (one pointy
stem base made). Repeat around,
completing 6 evenly spaced pointy stem base pieces, or alter as desired. Stuff stem with fiberfill.

Putting it all together:

Using a very long length of orange yarn, make three even
wraps around the entire pumpkin to create the pumpkin-like grooves, threading
through an orange button on the bottom if needed to keep secure. Pull yarn fairly tight so that nice deep
grooves are created, and so that the yarn doesn’t slide. Using a length of the green yarn and the
large eye needle, whip stitch the stem to the top of the pumpkin. 

Tips:

  • If
         desired, cut leaf shapes from dark green wool and stitch near the base of
         the stem.
  • Create
         tendrils by wrapping olive green pipe cleaners around a pencil and tucking
         into the base of the stem.
  • Make
         your stitches tight so that the stuffing doesn’t show through.
  • To
         make a smaller pumpkin, use a lighter weight yarn and a smaller crochet
         hook.

Crochet_pumpkin_table

Technique on 3rd spread of Lent journal

Somebody from a Yahoo group I am in asked me the other day what I did on the 3rd spread of my Lent journal and wanted a little info on how I did my journals, and I thought I would add my response to my blog, in case anyone else is interested…

"I’m more than happy to share my techniques on my journal pages with anyone that is interested, it’s just a matter of remember what the heck I did!

This journal was my first real art journal, and I jumped all over in it as opposed to filling up one page before moving on to the next. Since it was my first and I was intimidated, I wanted to be as loose andflexible as possible, so then it was fun not nerve wracking. That is why so many pages on my site are unfinished, although I need to update as many are much fuller now. Anyway, I did a ton of different things on the 3rd spread, so unfortunately the explanation will probably be long, but people can skip over the parts they find boring. 🙂

The left side of the spread is a mix of acrylics and watercolor (think orange and quinacridone magenta) – what I usually do is get the whole page of watercolor paper wet, then brush and drip on watercolor paint and liquid acrylic I have leftover in my pan from doing something else and let the water do all the work spreading it around. The big smear of orange was a bit of leftover tube acrylic spread on with a palette knife (if I have leftover paint I don’t know what to do with, it gets smeared in my journal :)). The little squares with the face, dress, and teacup were drawn in first and painted around when I did the background – I used a black micron pen, then pale watercolors that had dried up in my dish. I was in a very feminine, hip sort of girly shopping mood, but since I almost never shop, I just painted it out.

I wrote the little musing in watercolor pencil, first in light green, then in dark green cuz it was hard to see. I was in Starbucks at the time and saw something that amused me, and so I wrote it down. People really amuse me – not in a making fun of them sort of way, but in a way that notices and appreciates how different God made everyone – I likethe unique quirkiness of people, when some interesting part of their personality comes out. I enjoy people’s individuality, it helps me to understand and appreciate people better, to have a sense of humor, and to not take myself so darn seriously.

The right side I am blanking on – I think it was another wash of water with sap green liquid acrylic, pink, orange and yellow watercolor, then I did a light wash of gold lumiere on top of it. To do the painting of the girl, I cut a page out of a hardback novel and drew on the girl in using a black micron pen. Next, I scrubbed on some gesso all around the girl to block out most of the writing. All the color you see was using prismacolor nupastels, which are like chalk pastels but a bit denser and more vibrant. The flower was cut out of a wedding magazine. Then I glued the page in the book. I’ve been using the rest of the page for random things like a shopping list, when I needed something to writedown my friend’s new address, etc.

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions. So sorry I haven’t responded sooner – we’ve had enough happen in one week to last us a month! My husband and I are both down with bad colds, we moved, and my grandmother-in-law went in for emergency double bipass surgery. So it’s been busy!"

Recycled Course Catalogue

I just tried something new and exciting that I thought I’d share. I received a catalogue in the mail the other day at work from a university wanting me to come get a business degree. While I am not interested in pursuing a Master’s Degree in business right now (or perhaps ever), I couldn’t bring myself to throw the book away. It was a thick sort of magazine with good quality pages much thicker than the normal magazine – kind of like a Somerset Studio magazine, but a little thicker feeling. So anyway, I decided to experiment.

First I glued every other page together so they’d be twice as thick, by smearing on some gel medium around the edges in a rather haphazard and messy manner, then flipping over the next page onto the glued page and scraping a credit card along the top to smooth them out. Then I scrubbed on some gesso to mostly white out the words and, when dry, pressed the book down under some heavy books to even it out.

I have since worked in several pages of the book with really good results – so far the pages have taken acrylic, lumiere, chalk pastel, black gesso, tissue, candy wrappers, aluminum tape, and pens of all kinds with no problems. I think this will end up being a really nice art journal for me, and all it cost was one hour’s worth of gessoing and gluing!

So, if you’re cheap like me, you might want to give this a try – it is quite exhilarating to work in such a loose and messy way, and I find myself pretty relaxed when I work in it because it was just trash anyway (like I’m not nervous that I’m "messing up" something I paid precious dollars for). My coworkers are amused at my form of recycling my junk mail – I wonder what the school would think of what I’ve done to their catalogue?? 🙂

I’ll post some of the pages as soon as I have a few done and "postable."