Free Pumpkin Knitting Pattern

It's that time of the year when the leaves are changing colour, the nights are getting longer and of course pumpkins are appearing everywhere! So if you're not so green fingered why not knit yourself some pumpkins instead?

This pattern is super simple and can be made in any weight and type of yarn, fluffy smooth, colourful, chunky, whatever you've got hanging around in your stash!

Yarn:

Anything you want! The chunkier the yarn the bigger the final pumpkin will be. I used the following yarn & needle combinations to get different sized pumpkins:

Large Red: Super bulky (60m/100g), 9mm, final size approx. 8" / 20cm, used approx. 60g

Small Yellow: Chunky (110m/100g), 5mm, final size approx. 4" / 10cm, used approx. 40g

Needles:

Use a needle size 1mm smaller than recommend for you yarn of choice. This ensures you don't have a very gappy pumpkin. You can use either DPNs or circular needles.

Stuffing:

Yarn scraps, fabric scraps or toy filling, whatever you've got hanging around!

Pattern:

Cast on 42 leaving a long tail, and join to knit in the round

*k6, p1* 6 times to end of round

Repeat until your piece is approximately twice as long as it is wide.

Cut your working yarn leaving a long tail, use a darning needle to thread the yarn end through the live stitches and remove your knitting needles. Pull the end of the yarn tight to close the top of the pumpkin, weave in the yarn end.

Use a darning needle to thread the cast on yarn tail through the cast on stitches, stuff your pumpkin full and pull the hole tight.

Using the remaining yarn end wrap the yarn around the pumpkin along one of the purl ridges and pull tight as if to slice the pumpkin in half.

Secure this wrap by weaving into the central base of the pumpkin then repeat the wrap and weaving in for the two remaining purl ridges.

Weave in the remaining end making sure this is secured to keep the shape.

To make the stem use a contrasting colour to make a short 3 or 4 stitch wide icord and sew this onto the nicest looking end of your pumpkin.

If this is your first time making an icord check out this great tutorial from tin can knits: https://blog.tincanknits.com/2019/01/26/how-to-knit-an-i-cord/