When we were in elementary school, we were constantly crafting, both in and out of the classroom. We’d get into October and November and our backpacks would be filled with pumpkins and turkeys, ghosts and pilgrims - and our parents displayed it all. Some of those crafts are still in the seasonal decor rotation at our parents’ house now.

I’ve got my own kid-craft time now with my daughter, and it’s super fun. Her artwork has joined my decor just like ours did in our parents’ house. But I also have been having a fun time with adult-craft time. Ever since we moved into our new house, I’ve been creating decor like wall art, framed prints, and centerpieces for our new table (more on that later!). It’s been so nice because I was having a hard time finding things in stores that fit my decor vision and color palette. But when I create my own, it fits exactly what I’m looking for because I’m crafting it all myself!

The inspiration behind these pumpkins wasn’t so much that I couldn’t find pumpkins in store - those things are everywhere during the fall. My problem was how expensive they are! Especially the pretty yarn ones, and you know I was looking at them and thinking “I could do that.” After a little thinking, a little research, and a little procrastinating (obviously, it’s me), I finally got down to it and made my pumpkins. It’s only a week before Halloween, so I didn’t skip all of fall. Ready to learn how I did it?

Materials Needed

socks (new or used, it doesn’t matter and you don’t see them once the pumpkin is done)
yarn (whatever color you like!)
scissors
twine
pipe cleaners

I didn’t glue my pumpkins, because they’re just decor pieces, so I didn’t need them to be super sturdy. However, if you’re going to be handling your pumpkins more than just setting them on a shelf once a year, then I’d recommend having a hot glue gun on hand to stick down your yarn ends and your pumpkin stems.

Step One - Snip your Socks

First things first, cut the toes off your socks. You need to be able to roll them and end up with a hole in the middle like a donut.

Step Two - Roll your Socks

As I just mentioned, roll those socks up into little sock donuts. They don’t have to be perfectly even and you won’t see them at all once you get the yarn all wrapped around, so don’t worry too much if they’re misshapen or lumpy.

Step 3 - Measure your Yarn

The way this step works is completely up to you. You’ll be winding the yarn around and through the sock multiple times, so I personally started with 9 strands of yarn at 7 feet a piece. It sounds like a lot, but I had to do two 7-foot braids for each pumpkin.

Step 4 - Braid your Yarn

Do you like braiding? I certainly hope so, because you’re going to be doing a lot of it for these pumpkins! However, the braids make the yarn nice and thick and reduce the wrapping that you have to do to actually create the pumpkin. I used 9 strands in each braid, 3 per section. You can adjust this as you want, just remember that the thickness of your yarn braids will affect how many times you have to wrap it around your sock donut.

Step 5 - Wrap your Sock

Now that you’ve done the time-consuming part, you get to take that braid and wrap it around your sock. I started off by running one end through the middle hole and then continually wrapping it around the outside and back through that hole again. This method is why I made my braids so long, but if you want to do shorter braids and just wrap the ends up more frequently, go for it! Just know that no matter what you do, it will get harder to stick the yarn through the hole in the middle of the sock as you get further into your wrapping process. But that’s OK, it does a better job of keeping everything in place that way! Also, I didn’t use glue to hold my ends down, but that’s because I knew these pumpkins were just going to sit on my shelf each fall as decoration. If you’re planning on handling your pumpkins more, I’d suggest using a hot glue gun or even craft glue to hold the ends of your braids in place.

Step 6 - Squish It All Together

I won’t lie, when I started my pumpkins I was convinced it was going to be a Pinterest fail. Things were uneven and I could see the sock in-between the braids as I was winding it together. But I kept going because I was determined, and it paid off. Once I got the yarn fully wrapped around the pumpkin, I used this extremely precise method to get everything to look the way I wanted it to - I squished the pumpkin around until it looked acceptable. I’ll tell you what, crafting isn’t always super fancy methods; sometimes just shoving things around a bit fixes the problem. So squish your little yarn pumpkin until it looks nice, and if you feel so inclined, glue things down to keep them that way.

Step 7 - Twine

This step isn’t absolutely necessary, I just wanted to get some lines in my pumpkins for a little contrast. I braided 3 strands of twine together to make it a little thicker and then wound that braid a few times around each pumpkin. It took about 3 feet of twine braid to create the 6 or so lines that I ended up with here.

Step 8 - Add a Stem

I’ve seen some really cute yarn pumpkins with twigs used as stems. I love that idea, but I’ve also got a cat in the house who actively seeks to destroy anything natural that comes into our home. There’s roses from my birthday on our fireplace mantle right now and he keeps walking past and eyeing them up to see if he can jump up there and eat them. I didn’t want to come home to him chowing down on fake pumpkin stems, so I grabbed pipe cleaners and folded them up, then wrapped them in twine and stuck one in the center of each pumpkin. This can be glued down if you want, but there was so much yarn and twine in each of my pumpkins that adding a stem was just another way to hold everything in place.

I adore how these pumpkins turned out and I was even more excited with the fact that I could choose yarn colors to match the vibe I wanted for fall decor. After I posted these on social media, a friend pointed out that if I learned to crochet a chain I’d have probably cut my production time in half. Now you know that’s my new project, right? I have some Christmas ornaments that I want to make where I was going to braid yarn, do you think I can learn to crochet a chain in two weeks?

Yarn Pumpkins