These fabric pumpkin bowl fillers are fun, easy, and inexpensive to make! I saw these done by the fabulous Melissa Marro of Vintage Bee Designs (You can watch her ~video here~. ) They’re toward the end, but it’s all worth the watch.) I did mine slightly differently from hers, working with my “less than” talent and what I had on hand.
You’ll need:
- Fabric for pumpkins
- Fabric or ribbon to tie around the stem
- Thin quilt batting
- Something to use for the stems such as sticks from the yard, some type of finial or, I used these wood sticks from The Dollar TreeHowever, I can’t find them on Dollar Tree’s web site and didn’t see them the last time I was in the store. But Amazon has plenty of choices! Here is a link to craft wood stems suitable for pumpkin stems on Amazon. (Affiliate link)
- A pattern for the pumpkin or maybe you can draw it free hand. I sure can’t. I found a pumpkin pattern from Silhouette Studio and cut it out of cardstock
- Something to draw or trace your pattern. I use slivers of Dove soap on the fabric and a black marker on the batting.
- Pinking shears
- Glue – whatever kind you prefer
- Sewing machine. Although, you could stitch by hand or glue the stitching lines, but the results won’t be the same
I’ll bet you have most of that on hand. I did have to go buy the sticks from The Dollar Tree. We live in a new subdivision that is devoid of trees. I’d have had to get some exercise and walk a good bit to find any sticks. Yeah, yeah. It wouldn’t have hurt me to walk. But I didn’t.
- Find your pumpkin pattern. I made mine in two sizes, 5″ in diameter and 4″ in diameter. Since my freehand drawing stinks, I used a simple design I found in the Silhouette store, but you can also find one using a Google search and looking in Images. You can get as detailed as you feel comfortable, but for this project, you probably want to keep it really simple. I used this SVG file from Silhouette Studio. It seems to be called Pumpkin Basket.
If you’re familiar with SVG files, you know you can separate, or ungroup, every element, so I singled out one pumpkin and deleted the rest. Then I singled out the inside lines. This is what I had to work with: - Draw your outside shape on the fabric, then place the lines on top and trace them. If you use something like I did, you’ll have to finish the tops of the lines. If that makes sense.
- Trace the outer lines of the pumpkin on some thin batting. I advise cutting a bit smaller than the pattern so you don’t have much, if any, batting showing after sewing the edges together.
- Place the batting between the layers of fabric. You’ll have to kind of feel to see where your edges are and readjust. This does not have to be perfect! You’re not making an heirloom quilt here. It’s just seasonal bowl fillers.
- It’s time to sew! Sew the outline first, leaving a hole at the top large enough to fit the stem in. Then sew the center lines. Again, don’t worry about perfection. I know, I know, it’s hard for some of us, but just relax and do it. I promise, when you get them out next year, you’ll wonder why you stressed about perfection.
- Trim around the edges with pinking shears. Another option would be to fray the edges if your fabric is willing.
- Poke that stem in and glue tight around the fabric edges. I didn’t get a picture of this, but I think you can figure it out. I did have to saw off my sticks a little. You really don’t want it to go too far into the center of the pumpkin. You want it just far enough to be secure. Maybe about 3/4″-1″ into the pumpkin. How much you leave sticking out the top is just a visual thing. You’ll have to be the judge here. And yet again, it’s not a science.
- Rip strips of the bow fabric. Trim off any realllly long strings, but leave most of the strings that naturally happen. Or if you choose ribbon, cut it. I used about 22″ lengths ripped to about 1″ wide. I didn’t try to get the wrinkles or twists out. Just let them be natural. Tie them tightly around the stems. A simple shoe tie bow is fine. Or if you’re a talented bowmaker, use that talent! You might want to use a dab of glue on the tie. I skipped that.
And you’re done!
I hope you enjoy making these fabric flattie pumpkin bowl fillers. Another use would be to string them and make a fall garland.
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