A Moderately Spooky Space

‘Tis the season for dismembered body parts, rodents displayed on mantels and glass jars of insects. There are some spoooooky little vignettes out there. I am thrilled to participate in Jo-Ann Fabric’s Holiday Campaign which is pretty much a euphemism for getting my Halloween craft on. The assignment we were given was #spookyspaces. Well, spooky I can do… but my kids, not so much. So I had to come up with some spooky-ish spaces. (No severed body parts just yet…. try explaining that to a preschooler otherwise alarmed by “bugs” like fruitflies.)

How to Sew a Fabric Pumpkin

I started with a pumpkin. Radical, I know. I poked around online and determined that all of the sewing patterns for pumpkins were about the same shape…

For the fabric, I used felt, scraps from the Jo-Ann scrap bin, and a few clothing items purchased %50 off at Goodwill. (Tweed blazer much?) On some pumpkins, I hand sewed the seams with embroidery thread, but for most of them, I just cranked them out on the sewing machine. Took no time.

I left the top open just a bit in order to stuff with Polyfill and then hand-sewed the corners all together.

A quick google search for what shape a pumpkin leaf is and I had an outline with which to work… This sparkly green silk was on sale at Jo-Anns but it was super flimsy, so I used some iron-on backing to give the fabric a little more thickness.

Then it was simply a matter of tracing, cutting and a few quick stitches to make my pumpkins nice and leafy. A little more work with the embroidery thread could have given some veins for the leaves, but I was happy with the simple green outline.

I love the bright colors and the easy arrangement of my eclectic pumpkins…

But back to spooking these guys up (remember… the challenge is #spookyspaces, not #pumpkinspaces)… I lined up the assorted pumpkins on our mantel and brought in as many Halloween/ spooky details as I could without sending my kids into Halloween spooky fits. (Think spider webs, plastic bugs, a glowing rat, and one black raven.)

I doubt that Wes Craven or Stephen King will be over to take notes, but consider us as spooked as we’re gonna get this year!

This could be a super fun project for an older child, and it CERTAINLY is an easy project for anyone no matter your sewing skill… PROMISE.