repurposed crochet hat pumpkin

i'm a hat girl. always have been. i love wearing them
and have a pretty big collection of hats for every season.
i have thick straight hair and on the many days when it won't cooperate,
i just pop a ballcap or sunhat or cloche on my head and fuhgeddaboutit.

the only hats i don't like on my head are beanies. my forehead's too big.
but when i found THIS beanie, i fell in love with it and had to buy it...

because the moment i saw it, i KNEW it had to become a pumpkin!
here i am using things in ways they weren't intended to be used again LOL

continue reading for my tutorial (which is much like my sweet sweater pumpkin tute)...

dwk

i love to give small businesses and artisans a shout out,
so i'll share that i found this cute and colorful beanie hat at one of my fave thrift stores - 

Kit 'N Caboodle Thrift in Oceanside, California - website . instagram . facebook 

(and when i told the darling girl working that day what i was going to do with it,
she demanded my blog link so she could see the post!
i think i'll take the pumpkin in with me the next time i visit)

what you need for this project:

polyfil stuffing (or the insides from an old pillow!)

a crochet hat of any size . scissors . medium-weight twine in any color

plus one small spool of twine in a matching color . one pipe cleaner/chenille stem
and a bottle cap!

these are made very much like my original sweet sweater pumpkins (TM)

there are a lot of steps, but it's not hard!

instructions illustrated from left to right: 
(you can click on the images to enlarge them on your screen)

*take the twine or yarn, and wrap it six times around your elbow & thumb to make big loops.

 

*cut it in half at your thumb so that you have one big long hank of 'threads'.

It should be approximately 12 to 18 inches long. tie a knot on one end of the hank.

*turn your hat inside out.
insert the knotted end of the twine hank into the top of the crocheted hat,
from the outside to the inside.
this hat has an existing hole, so i used that -
if yours doesn't, simply cut a VERY SMALL hole in the hat at the top of the crown.
@ one inch of the twine hank should be inside the hat -
the rest of the twine will hang outside of it.

*to secure the twine hank inside the hat, wrap the knot tightly with a rubber band.
in my case, the hole in the top of the hat was too large for this -
so i grabbed a chenille stem/pipe cleaner and inserted it BELOW the knot,
then wove it through the weave of the hat on both sides of the hole.
twisting it together secured the pipe cleaner and twine hank to the hat.

*flip the hat right-side-out.

*stuff the hat with polyfill or the filling from an old pillow. 
lots of stuffing will make your pumpkin rounder,
and less stuffing will result in a flatter, 'squashed' look.
fill the hat @ 3/4 full, leaving enough room to gather up the hat edges in the next step.

*my hat has four sections crocheted in a 'granny square' pattern,
and i used that as a guide when i gathered it -
because i want that pattern to show up clearly on my finished pumpkin.
(your hat may be different, especially if it has no pattern.)
when i gathered mine, i began by grabbing the seams between the pattern areas -
once all four were in my hand,
i grabbed the hat rim positioned above the centers of those patterned areas,
which made them lie smoother and be more clearly visible in the finished pumpkin.

*holding the gathered hat rim firmly, secure it with a thick rubber band
twisted twice around the gathered fabric.
you'll now have a bunched up 'stem' on top and the twine coming out the bottom of your hat.

*flip the hat over so the twine is at the top. separate the hank of twine into six single strands,
and spread them out equidistantly around the rounded top of the hat.
evenly distribute the strands around the form.

(as i was doing this, i realized that if i used all six strands, i would interrupt the pattern...
so i equidistantly positioned four of the strands, and cut the unused two strands off.)

*wrap the strands around the form and hold them above the bunchy 'stem'.
sit the form down, then one by one insert each strand UNDER the rubber band around the 'stem'
to hold them in place firmly.

*if your rubber band does not hold them firmly in place, twist it around the 'stem' one more time. put the twine strands in a bunch on top of the 'stem' as you do this to make it easier.

*begin gently pulling each separate strand upward in a clockwise pattern.
pull each one twice or more to create enough tension to pouf out the fabric and form a pumpkin shape.
your goal is to create the 'ribs' of a pumpkin that delineate each section.

help it along by pulling the fabric out a bit at the top & bottom edges, so that the ridges are more defined.

*once the ridges are even, tie the strands together around the stem in pairs, two at a time, to hold them in place. a simple knot is enough. 

*wrap the long ends of those twine strands around the stem to completely cover the rubber band with twine, knotting them together to secure them. 

*now you have two options for the stem:

wrap the hat rim above the rubber bands with more twine, as on my sweater pumpkins -
or do what i did.

*i evened out the ruffled edge of the hat rim,
then inserted a smaller spool of thinner twine as a 'stem'.

the tension of the rubber band around it holds it in place.

(i also angled mine just a bit for more personality!)

*the final detail wasn't planned, but a happy accident:

i didn't like the hollow end of the twine spool, so i looked around my studio for a cap.

when my eyes spied the yellow bottlecap (i pick them up when i see them on the ground!)

i grabbed it and popped it on top - and it could not fit more perfectly!

even when the bottle cap isn't fully visible, the edges of it are a perfect finishing touch.
you can see how each section of the hat pouffs out to become one of the pumpkin 'ridges'...
this is how i want all of my stuffed pumpkins to look! like pumpkins!
sorry but i see so many out there that look more like round apples or melons with stems
and it breaks my heart! it's really not hard to get this realistic shaped effect.

with so much color and pattern on the pumpkin,
i decided to display it alone with the simple golden paper leaves i made in 2021. 
i could also add in some of my solid yellow ceramic pumpkins
... or i could shoot a quick reel for Insta! 
i did - but Insta won't generate an embed code for me. BOO. 
so click to view it on Instagram and Pinterest

related content:

the original sweet sweater pumpkin tutorial 

(ps: the pumpkin on the left side was made from a knit baby hat!)

boho chic crochet pumpkin

lace curtain pumpkins 

shared online:

funky junk interiors | new upcycle ideas #693

creatively beth | team creative crafts linky party #163

thank you for including my project in your feature, Miss Beth!

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