Monday, September 6, 2010

Meet Designer Garden.....

It's Treasures FIRST Guest Blogger!!!

 I'm so excited for you to meet Sommer from Designer Garden!!!


Make sure you stop by her blog and check out her furniture transformations!!

The "Green Beast" is my fav!!

Ok, here's Sommer....


Hi everyone!  For those of you who don't already know me, my name is Sommer and I am the girl behind Designer Garden.  I want to give a big THANK YOU to Angie for having me here today.  I'm so excited to share these great fabric pumpkins with you!



I found these on another blog but her tutorial was very limited on information so I made my own with lots of pictures for you to follow!  I'm hoping these will be simple and easy to follow instructions for our beginner seamstresses out there.


Let’s get started shall we? Here is your supply list...


3 or 5 fat quarters in different/coordinating fall colors and prints.  A fat quarter is typically a piece of fabric pre-cut 18x21in.  You can often find fat quarter bundles at your fabric store already in coordinating fabrics.


Scissors or Rotary blade

1 bag of Poly fill (stuffing)

As much or little coordinating ribbon, cording or other embellishments you might want

Here you see I have 5 different fabrics I found all together in a bundle at Walmart. 





Next you're going to want to cut these in half.  Some of them long ways and some short ways.  This will allow you to have pumpkins in different heights.  You can make them any size you want really. But you will need two piece of each fabric cut to the same size for the front and back of each pumpkin.



Now I left this off your supply list but you will need one extra fat quarter for your stems.  I chose a neutral color but you can have a green or brown as well.  I cut mine about 6x6 in.





Here you will sew them up in the shape of a long stem then cut the excess off from around the edges.  Turn right side out.







Now you will stuff them with your Polly fill.  I use a strait pin to close them off so the stuffing doesn't come out in the mean time.  Set these aside for now.





Now take all the pieces of beautiful fabric you cut earlier and fold them in half.  You will sew a pattern like you see below on the fold.  Then trim the excess.







This picture is a bit hard to see but when you open it up it will look like this.  See how it has a pucker?





Okay here is the tricky part but not too tricky.  Keep your seam ripper handy in case you goof.  Oh and the seam ripper is the little tool that looks like a miniature pitch fork kind of.


You will two identical pieces like you see above.  One in the bottom and one is the top.  Lay the bottom one down and place your stem with the open side facing the edge of your fabric like so...





Now you will lay your top piece on top, right sides together.  You want to remove the strait pin from your stem and re-pin through all three pieces of fabric to keep the stem in place.  I choose to free hand my pumpkin shape because that is kind of how they grow in nature but if you want to you can use your strain pins to make the shape of your pumpkin.






Start at the bottom of the pumpkin and work your way around with a strait stitch leaving a gap at the bottom.  This is where you will stuff the pumpkin.  Don't forget to back stitch when start and stop sewing to make your knots.


Now forgive this next step as I show 6 bags but I mis-counted because I was only doing 5 pumpkins heehee.  Mommy brain strikes again!


Once all your pumpkins have been sewn cut the excess and turn right side out.  Now you can stuff them.  When they are all stuffed up you will need to fill some snack size zip locks with beans or rice.  These will go on the bottom of the pumpkins before you stitch them up so they can stand up right =)




So go ahead and slip those beans into the bottom and hand stitch your hole closed.  If you are handy with your sewing machine you may be able to sew it up on there like I did.


Here is what you get when you're all finished!





I ran short on stuffing so I only have three to show you right now.




Do you love them?  I think they are perfect for any fall theme and being able to choose your fabrics makes them even better!  Now you can use your ribbon, cording, left over fabric or what not and tie them around the stems!




Thanks again for coming by to check out my fabric pumpkins.  I hope you enjoy them!

Sommer


Thank you so much Sommer for taking the time to put together that pumpkin tutorial!!

 You sure make sewing sound easy!!

9 comments:

Sommer said...

Thanks again for having me Angie! If anyone has questions about this tutorial I am happy to help walk you through it via email. Visit my blog to find how to contact me.

Debbiedoos said...

Those are adorable! I think I could do that.

Viola said...

Sommer thank you for the great pumpkin tutorial. Perfect for the season. Your dinning room looks great also.

* The Design Confidential said...

Sommer, these are ADORABLE! yahoo, can't wait to head over and enter your giveaway! http://designergarden.blogspot.com/2010/09/guest-post.html

Angie I'm so glad you had sommer here to share this with us. you all know how much i need sewing tutorials. let's just say i haven't gotten past my first project :(

Jen said...

Cute pumpkins. I need to learn to sew.
I researched Labor Day this year too. Interesting!
I'm running this morning. It is cool now, but will get much hotter later. I need the cool weather to move in!
Hope your week is great!

Sommer said...

For those of you who are intimidated by the sewing machine please stop by my blog where you can enter for a chance to win these pumpkins!
http://designergarden.blogspot.com/2010/09/guest-post.html

scrapwordsmom said...

So.very.cute.!

Renée Finberg said...

you should give classes.
you gave great instructions.
and i must say th pumpkins are cute and clever.

it was nice meeting you, i will hop over to your blog.

ps love to you angie!! xx

Kerri said...

Those pumpkins are adorable!
I really need to take a sewing class! I'll put it on my list! :)