Copy Cat Pumpkin

About a month ago I was at my friend Carrie's house. Sitting on the counter were three amazing velvet pumpkins.  Her husband had found them at a shop while they were on vacation. He bought them. She thought it was funny because he usually could care less about that kind of stuff. I could see why he bought them they were lovely; the price however wasn't.
After looking them over I told her we could make them. This week we finally got together to try it.

 I had been to two other stores to find autumnal shades of velvet with no luck. Guess it was time to go to Fabric Depot. I am lucky to live close to one of the best fabric stores in the US. No, seriously they bus people down from Canada (seven hours away) to shop here. The day I went in happened to be one of their rare 35% off days. SCORE! (On a side note I had an epiphany that the customers at the fabric store were getting younger and hipper OR I was getting older and less cool. #Portlandhipsters)

I had tried my at one prior to Carrie and her daughter Ashley coming over. It worked out okay, but she had heard using a square would make the top more "scrunchy". She was right.



Pre rice stuffing.

Finished product. The original ones had real stems. We used twigs for some, but I took the stems off some of my acorn squash for a few. I might get in trouble for "stealing" stems off of gourds at the store this fall. Will you bail me out?

Steps...(I admit to teaching for a living, but I don't do tutorials well).

1. Cut out a velvet square.
2. Use a loose stitch around the edges. It
 is important to double, or triple, your thread. I suggest using a heavy duty thread.
3. Stuff pumpkin with rice drawing up the thread as you go. We used a funnel thanks to the common sense of my lovely seven-year-old's logic.
4. Tie string tightly. Be careful not to break it.
5. Hot glue stem and leaves.