Peter's Pumpkin Bag

A few months ago I went searching for craft ideas that use orange fleece. I have extra from a previous halloween costume that I want to use up. I found this pattern/tutorial for a pumpkin bag online, but the link doesn't work anymore. Thank goodness I printed it out. :)


Basically it said to find a picture of a pumpkin that you like and blow it up to get your pattern. I printed out half of the pumpkin onto a regular piece of paper and jut put it on the fold to cut the fabric.

I used the shape of this pumpkin.

And I used the mouth of this pumpkin.

The bag is the orange fleece and the lining is halloween cotton fabric. The tutorial said that you needed cotton batting but wasn't specific on where it went so I sandwiched it between the fleece and the cotton. I also lined the cotton with interfacing so that it would be stiffer and stand up & stay open on its own. The eyes and mouth are felt and I used some craft spray adhesive to put them on and then I used a satin stitch to keep them in place. I also used a satin stitch to make the pumpkin lines.

The handle is one strand of fleece braided together with two strands of cotton. I used large grommets to reinforce around the holes for the handle.

The original tutorial made a bag that was just a front & back but no bottom. I made my own "pattern" for the bottom & just winged it. It also had bats & leaves and such decorating the top of the bag, but I'm not sure I'm going to add those.

Here's the finished product.




There are a few things that I would do differently:

• I would choose a rounder pumpkin picture.
  
• I would attach the interfacing to the fleece and leave out the batting.
• I would sew on the pumpkin lines on just the fleece.
  
• I would sew on the face BEFORE I sew the bag together.
  
• I would try not to break 3 needles.