How to Crochet a Pumpkin

1. Class Introduction: Hi, I'm Lisa, and welcome to my how to crocher your own pumpkin class. In this class, I'll explain everything that you need to know to make pumpkin broken down into easy steps. Firstly, we'll go through how to crocher the main body of your pumpkin. Then we'll look at how to crocher the stalk, and then we'll move on to how to sew your pumpkin together and shape it. For this class, you will already need to know some basic croche skills. You'll need to know how to make chain stitches, half double croter stitches, and how to work in the round. You'll also need some basic materials to complete this class. You will need some small amounts of decay yarn in orange and brown, some toy stuffing, a three millimeter croche hook, scissors, and a wide eyed needle to sew in your ends. 2. Lesson 1 - Techniques Required: Before I get started, I'm just going to go through some of the techniques that you will need to know in order to make this little pumpkin. You will just need to know some basic stitches and techniques. When I'm explaining what stitches you need to use to make the pumpkin, I'll be using US terms. Just in case you're used to using UK terms, you might need to look at what the conversion for that would be. But basically to make this little pumpkin, you'll need to know how to chain. Make single crochs, make half double crochs and how to work in the round and also in rows. It is quite simple because this part that makes the main body of the pumpkin is actually worked flat in rows. It's just the little stoke on the top that it's actually worked in the round. The the main things that you will need to know. 3. Lesson 2 - Making Body of The Pumpkin: We're going to get started on making the body of the pumpkin, the orange part. This part is worked flat and rows. First thing that we need to do is get our orange yarn, and we need to use our three mill hook, and we're going to start by making a chain with this y of 21 chain stitches. I'll just quickly make my chain. I've now got my chain of 21 stitches. For the first row, we are going to phase the single cate into the second chain from the hook. You'll be to see there, we're looking at these ridges on the back, so I'm not going at the first ridge, I'm going at the the second chain there. We're going to single cost into this one. And then we're going to single cost into the next chain stitches. That we've got our one, two, three, four, we've got our five, first stitches, which are all single crochet. Now, what we're going to do is, in order to make these bud bits on the side of the pumpkin, I'm going to do the middle stitches are going to be half double ces on every. We want to do half double crotches into the next ten stitches. I'll just speed this up while I do this. 110, half double crotches into the middle stitches, you then want a single crotch into the last five. E. Now that we've done our first row, what we're going to do is for our second row to make these little ridge sits here that you can see on the pumpkin. We're going to make all of our stitches in every row into the back loop only of the stitches in the previous row. By back loop, we mean just that one there. You've got both loops, but you just want to go into the back one. Make all your stitches into the back loop like so. You want to do your first five single crochet. Once we've done our first five. We'll move on to our half double cross stitches. We do our ten of them again all into the back loops. Now we've done all the half doubles. We want to do the last five as single cross into the back loop as well. Now that we've done them into the back loop, you can see that little line that's starting to form. That is that line there. That's just going to help make these ridges when we come to construct the pump then later on. You want to do this. Keep working same row over and over. Doing five single cross stitches and then your ten half doubles in the middle and you five singles at the end, but just doing the middle of the back loop only of the row before. Do this until you've got 24 rows in total. Okay. I'll speed this up while I do my 24 rows. See that I've now finished my 24 rows. We've now got this piece that is quite long, but it's got ridges in it, which make up the ridges in the pumpkin. The next thing that we're going to do with this is we are going to fold it that and we're going to const the rest of the pumpkin. 4. Lesson 3 - Gathering The Bottom: Now what we're going to do is we are going to construct the pumpkin. You've got two ways you can do this part. We are going to fold this in half like so. And then we're going to join this end. You can either do it by cutting your yawn and tying your end off and then using your wide eyed sewing needle to hem it, or you can do what I'm going to do, leave the yan attached and single or slip stitch the two edges together. This is just my preferred way of doing it. It doesn't really matter which way you do it, it'll come out the same. To seem it, we're just going to put the hook through both loops. And I'm just going to single crochet in it pot hook through every set of stitches. I'll just do that along until I've done all of them. Done, making sure you get the two ends lying together like that. Last one. Now that we've joined the seam there, we can cut our n. Then you can fasten it off. In the next part of constructing our pumpkin. Now that we've joined our seam edge, we are going to run running sit around the bottom and we're going to gather it in to tighten it to create this part in the bottom of the pumpkin. This at the moment is inside out. We're going to get a length of. Don't need a lot. We probably need a bit more than what I've let there. I'm just going to thread my wide eyed needle. And then what I'll do is, I'll just join it on here. If you've left enough there, you can just use the end, but not quite left enough. Going to join it on. This is going to be the insides, which doesn't matter that I've got a bit of a loop going on here. To run the running to stitch to the running stitch, you need to do it in and out like so. If you go either side of each of the ridges, I've got the line of ridges there, then do that in and out. Around this one edge. As you go, if you just pull your string it will tighten and gather. Keep doing this until you get back around to the beginning where you started stitching. In and out of equally distance is between the stitches. It doesn't matter if it's not exact. As long as it gathers up correctly, it doesn't really make that much difference. See how we tighten it, it makes this shape here. I think I need a couple more here. But then you can see I'm back to the beginning there. Once you've done that, pull you string tights gathers, and then to secure it. S the ends. Keeping it tight. F. Go through a few times in different directions. Does that mean that your end is going to be secure. It also means the bottom will be as well. Once you've done that, cut off your end, and then we're going to turn it the right way out. See that it at the bottom, and then we are going to stuff it next. 5. Lesson 4 - Stuffing Your Pumpkin: Our next step is going to be to stuff the pumpkin body. I've just got normal toy stuff in here. I don't know exactly how much is here. But I probably won't use everything I've got in this little bowl. Stuff it in. You want to make sure that it's pretty well packed, but not massively over stuffed. You don't want bit of stuffing to be coming out. The holes are showing in between the stitches. I probably can get a bit and win there. I just push it in. Try and make sure you've got it stuffed evenly if you can. I am not the best at stuffing. I don't make a lot of toys or anything. I don't tend to stuff many things, but obviously, we're going to be gathering this over the top. So I'm going to be pulling in the edges as well to make our ridges. That's probably I would say full of like that. No next step, we are going to be running sit around the top this time. So we cut ourselves in the length of orange. Thread our needle. And then we're going to secure this the end. I'll stitch over a couple of times. Then like we did before, we'll just do your running stitch around turn this around and see it on the outside. We do on my running stitch this w to get in and out like you did before. And gathering it in as you go. Give us you an idea of how well you've got it stuffed as well. We do it as you are doing his stitches. We pull that type. You're going to assess how well it's stuffed. That is pretty much spot I would want. At this stage, if you want a, you can just pull it open and you can put a bit more stuff in or take a bit more stuffing out if you've overfilled it. I'm quite happy with that. Tighten it like we did before, and we're going to do what we did with the bottom. We're going to stitch this opening. Quite a few times in different directions just to secure it and make sure nothing comes out. We're going to hide the sit as well later on. So Yeah. But if you can stitch it together, it does make life a little bit easier. Okay. I'll just do a few more stitches. I just got your end. And you have got your stuffed pumpkin body. 6. Lesson 5 Shaping Your pumpkin: In this next part, we are going to make these gd in ridges here. It's dead easy. It looks a lot harder than it is. What you'll want is quite a long piece of your orange on. Then want to thread your needle with the yawn. Touch the yawn to this bit that we saw together because this is where our stork is going to go. We're trying to hide the ends under the stork. But we put that out. I'll just attach our yn here. Do yourself a couple of stitches to secure it properly. Key at interest in case. Key. Then what we're going to do to make these ridges, we are going to wrap it around and push it up through the middle of the pumpkin with the needle coming out of the top where the st will be. We can see here that we've got a gathered in part for every two these ridge stitches. We're just going to try and start at the beginning of my round, which I think is there because I can tell because I don't have a line of rib stitches. We get our yawn, line it up with where we want our ridge to be. We get our needle, which is quite important that you've got a long one. You put it into the bottom, and then you feed it up and push it to come out the top, where the sto would be. Then what you do is, making sure your yawn is still where you want it to your bridge. Pull your yawn through out the top and tighten it. I'm just lining it up. And if you pull it in, you will say it starts to make the little ridges. Once you do in your first one, you've got one ridge there and you want to go two along. You want two of those lines and then go into the line of stitches between that and the next bit. There, then you would push it up through the bottom again out at the top, pull it and tighten it. And then we'll do one next one, we'll miss two of those ridge bits, so we put in there. And then we push it back up through the stork again, and then we pull it. See it starting to its little segments. Miss two of your ridge stitches, put it into that one. Through the middle. O the top again. And we want to pull it. Then we miss our two, put it through. Push that through the bottom and out through the top. And then I'm going to pull it tight. You how tight, you pull it, but I have pulled it quite tight. And then I think we going to our last one here, so we miss them to. Actually, we might need to do two more. Put that there through the middle again. I haven't done that right. That's just the beginning of my round so. You want to make sure you pull it as tight as you want it. Make sure it looks all right. Then if you just weave in your ends your end here by just sewing over and over and over. Quite a few times just to secure it tightly, but make sure you hold it as tight as you need it. We need do your first couple of stitches. Stitch over this. Just do one. Okay. So I think we've done that. But we will just cut off beyond that. That's the main body done. Go all done. 7. Lesson 6 - Making The Stalk: Our next stage in making our pump in is to make our stock. For that, we are going to use our brown yarn, and we're going to use the same quarter hook. We're going to do what's called a magic circle to begin with. You might want to look a how to do this if we don't know basically a loop and then you want to make six single roses into your loop that you've got. Number six, you want to pull your tail and tighten your magic loop. And then slip stitch into the first stitch to join it. That is your first round of your stock done. We then chain one, and then we're just going in a single each stitch. But we're going to do it through the back loop on this round, so we'll just go and do this one. And then we want a slip stitch. Should jerry a little around that. Then we are going to do another round again. So what is going to do a single into each stitch. Don't have to do a back this time. Again, if you just slip stitch in your first one from your last chain. You see it's getting the so I need to make it one more round. R again and all of them again. Both loops again this time, not just the back ones. And then you join that with your slip stitch. At stork done. If you just Leave a little bit of an end because we need to saw the stock on, but then just snip it with your scissors. Your end and tie that off. Then what you want to do if we can, turn it inside out, and then we're going to s in the end of our magic circle. Just do this so that the top of the stork stays tightened up and the loop doesn't loosen off. Okay. End up and then turn it back to the right way out again. See where you've done your back loop there, you've got a little circle on the top. That's just to try and make the top of your stock a little bit flat. What we're going to do now is we are going to attach our stock onto the middle of the top of our pumpkin. It should cover all of the ends we've saw in there. C our needle again, we attach using our long end. Then I'm just going to choose a spot we tend to stitch it on round about here, round about that part. As you tighten it it gathers in a little bit. Just to start, if I find a stitch that touch on do about there. I might seem a little way out, but Should be fine. Then what we're going to do is, we are going to stitch the stitch the last single quarters of the round and just put quite tight. Then you say it tightens up and it doesn't look like it's actually coming out from being stitched that far away. If we do this and go into every stitch. We'll need about six or seven stitches around to get into the right place. You might find it a little bit hard to actually find a bit to get you needle through. That's why this needle is quite good it's got a curved edge. So I see going around just tighten your stitches up. And then I try this bit. I put that there. All, a couple of moments ago. Do we are covering our bit with all our ends underneath. This is our last stitch around. So we then tighten it up you'll say that the bits disappear that you've stitched in. I don't think any one more. So tight that up there. Just make sure it's touched all the way around. We need a couple extras, that's fine. Now I've pulled that in. That looks like that's a o. So what I'll now do is just weave in my ends, try to do it down the bottom because this yarn is a bit more of variegated, you can see, but just saw through a little bit like that. Secure your end and then to hide your end, push your needle middle. Pull it tight, your scissors and clip it really close to the stop, but not too close that you snip actual st clip it there and you'll see that your end will disappear into your stock. There you go. There's your finished pumpkin. I might need a little bit of massage it get it into the right shape. As you can see, it's come out slightly bigger than the other one. That's because my tension is pretty loose as you can tell. Obviously, when I've done this one last night, when I've writ in the pattern, I've done this one a little bit tighter leg I should have. It doesn't matter, I just comes out a little bit larger. And there you go. Got the finished pumpkin. Say if you want to make your little segments a bit more stuffed or less stuffed, massage the stuffing around a little bit. Until you get to the right ship. But there you go, you'll finished pumpkin. 8. Thank You!: So much for taking this class, I really hope that you've enjoyed learning how to crochet your own pumpkins. Don't forget to add photos of your finished pumpkins to the class project area of the class. I really love saying your work. You can also take a look at my profile to say all of the crochet and knitting classes that I currently have on Skillshare. I hope to see you again soon.