Back to School time means it’s fall craft time at my house, and no fall would be complete without a pumpkin project. This year, I’ve crafted up a few fabric pumpkins using my favorite fabric from Amy Barickman’s Crossroads Denim collection. These silly pumpkins have goofy giant grins and big button eyes, hand stitched leaves and curly-q vines… and this year, I’ve added in a touch of rustic glamor with the help of Therm O Web’s fabulous iCraft® Deco Foil™ Transfer Sheets.
These guys really make me smile, and they are so easy to put together. Let’s take a closer look!
iCraft DecoFoil Fabric Pumpkins by Designer Audrey Pettit
Supplies:
Therm O Web iCraft Deco Foil Liquid Adhesive
Therm O Web iCraft Deco Foil Transfer Sheet- Pumpkin
Therm O Web Fabric Fuse Liquid Adhesive
Therm O Web Stitchn’Sew Fleece Sew-In High Loft
Crossroads Denim by Amy Barickman- French Vanilla
Sewing Supply: green fabric, buttons, thread, polyfill fiber
Floss: DMC
Paint: Delta
Twine: May Arts
To begin, hand-draw a simple oblong pumpkin pattern onto a piece of scrap paper. These pumpkins are considered “primitives”, so don’t worry about perfection. With primitives, the more rustic the pattern, the better. Cut out the pattern. Fold the pumpkin fabric in half, with right sides facing, and pin the pumpkin pattern in place. Cut around the pattern to create two body shapes.
Pin the two fabric pumpkins together with right sides facing. Starting at the top right corner, machine stitch around the pumpkins using a 1/4″ seam allowance. Stop stitching at the top left corner, leaving an open approximately 2-3″ wide. With a sharp scissor, make small snips in the outer seam allowance every half inch or so around the pumpkin body. Just be sure you don’t cut through the stitching!
Turn your pumpkin shapes right side out. Fill bodies with polyfill fiber, and whip stitch the top opening closed. Leave a small space in the very center to insert a thin stick for the pumpkin stem. Add a few dabs of Fabric Fuse™ Liquid Adhesive around the base of the stem to help keep it in place, and then stitch the opening all the way closed.
Primitives often have a shabby painted finish that gives them that time worn look. To get this finish, I mixed orange acrylic craft paint with a small touch of brown, and then painted the mixture onto my pumpkins. Once the paint has completely dried, sand your pumpkins with a fine-grit sandpaper. You can coffee or tea stain them after that, if you wish.
To create the foiled section for the eyes, squirt a good amount of iCraft® Deco Foil™ Liquid Adhesive onto a piece of scrap paper. Paint the adhesive onto a strip of additional fabric using a foam brush. You need a fairly thick application of the adhesive for this, as some of the adhesive will get absorbed into both the fabric and the brush, so go over your fabric several times with the adhesive. And if you wash your brush out quickly afterwards, you may be able to recycled it for another project. Set the fabric aside until it has completely dried, which in my case was a good hour at least. You want to give the adhesive enough time to dry so that it doesn’t come off on your finger if you touch it. Once the adhesive is dry, it will become tacky to the touch, but not wet.
Cut a piece of Pumpkin iCraft® Deco Foil™ Transfer Sheet that is about the same size as your fabric swatch. Lay the foil down onto the adhesive-coated fabric, silver side down and shiny colored side facing up. Burnish the top of the foil with your finger or the back of a spoon. This fabric is textured, so you’ll need to rub over all areas fairly well… but because of the texture of this Crossroads Denim, you’ll end up with a nice, random, “primitive” foiled finish.
Peel up the Deco Foil transfer sheet and check out your fun foiled fabric!
Now let’s finish the facial features. I machine stitched some loopy circles onto my foiled fabric for the eye backings. Cut out the stitched circles, hand-sew on buttons, and then adhere the eyes to the pumpkin using Fabric Fuse™ Liquid Adhesive.
Add a twig for the mouth, and hand-stitch in place using black embroidery floss. For the leaves, fold some green fabric in half, with right sides facing. Insert a piece of Stitchn’Sew™ Fleece between the fabric layers. Pin all three layers together, and then free hand cut leaf shapes from the fabric. Once again, these are primitives, so the more free-form your shapes are, the better. Stitch around the edges of the leaves and add vein stitching to the centers.
Adhere the leaves to the base of the stems using Fabric Fuse™ Liquid Adhesive. Tie several strands of natural twine around the stems. To create the curly-q’s, I coat the twine with the Fabric Fuse™ liquid glue, and then twirl the ends around a pencil or a straw. Once the adhesive has dried, you can easily remove the pencil and the twine will retain that great curly shape.
Enjoy!
[…] Deco Foil a Fall Primitive Pumpkin, by Audrey Pettit […]