Halloween Special: Crochet Pumpkin

Um, Halloween is amazing. It’s like Christmas for the spooky kids. It’s like Thanksgiving for the sweet tooth crowd. And most importantly ITS AN EXCUSE FOR ADULTS TO PLAY DRESS UP.

Also, have you disemboweled a gourd recently? Satisfying.

Armed with some bright orange handspun yarn I had stashed, I decided to finally make a crochet pumpkin with it! I found several good guides –

The Fairy Tale Pumpkin pattern from Crochet Dynamite I used to get started, though I mostly freeform stitched using sc and hdc to enhance the bumpy surface of the handspun. I wanted it to look warty, like an heirloom variety, so I decided to turn the wrong side outward to make it even bumpier!

I started with a Magic Circle and a base of 6 sc worked continuously in the round, then just freeform added the increases. I didn’t count exactly but I payed attention to make sure there were more increases than necessary, to give the sides of the pumpkin room to fold and form those characteristic pumpkin ridges later.

Once the base was big enough, I worked in non-increasing rounds to form the sides of the pumpkin, then freeform decreases to close up the top. It was kind of a guessing game, as I didn’t have very much of that yarn! Fortunately I came to the end with a little to spare.

Next, I tucked in the yarn tails and stuffed that fella! Be careful not to overstuff – I had to go back and pull some out later so that I could make better ridges. You’ll want it to have some give, more than for normal amigurumi.

Too much :/

I tried the technique from the Fairy Tale pumpkin pattern to do the ridges, but unfortunately my yarn was just too thick and stubborn to thread the yarn through the actual stitches. Instead I used a hybrid version of this pumpkin shaping technique from Itsy Bitsy Spider Crochet, but I threaded my yarn through the center of the pumpkin (in through the center top and out through the center of the base) as per the Fairy Tale instructions. Worked awesome in my opinion!

After I finished up the main part, I made a little stem using the front post / back post technique suggested for the Fairy Tale pumpkin, but widened the base and stuffed it just a little. The yarn I used is a naturally dark brown alpaca fiber! Super soft.

But why stop there? I had some green handspun too, so I grabbed it and chained a length for the vines, and worked 2 sc in each ch st back across to make it a little curly. As you can see I stopped periodically to make some quirky leaves (I have a tutorial for those here!) Then, I sewed the vine onto the top to complete my glorious gourd.

I’m especially attached to it- I rarely get to make things that are entirely hand spun. The orange yarn in particular is one of the first that I had dyed and spun myself a few years ago – I always knew it needed to be a pumpkin, and now it finally is! Satisfying.