Making A Pumpkin:
For the pumpkin, we will start by making a white ball. Break off a length of white wool roving about the length of your hand.
Roll it between your hands as you would roll a ball of playdough into a snake.
Roll the wool ‘snake’ into a tight, fat, spiral, like a cinnamon bun. The tighter you can get it, the easier it will be to felt. The fatter your spiral, the rounder your ball will be.
Once the wool is in the spiral you can start stabbing it with the large felting needle.
Be slow and deliberate with your stabbing in the beginning, and concentrate, working to compact the wool into a tight ball.
You will soon see that this stabbing holds the wool in place and your spiral will not unravel if you let it go.
Next, take some of the orange roving, about the length of your hand from wrist to fingertips, and cover the white ball with the orange roving. It may look a little like dumpling.
Cover light spots or fill in divots or holes.
Start to stab the orange wool into place on top of the white, and shaping pumpkin as you go. It is easy to add additional pieces of orange wool to cover white spots. You are done when the orange wool is smooth and does not come apart.
To make the ‘segments’ of your pumpkin, Take enough embroidery thread tat goes around your ball at least 3 times.
Working with the thread, wrap the pumpkin up like putting gift wrap on a present. When you are happy with the number of segment, pull the thread tight enough that the pumpkin segments bulge out between the pieces of thread. Tie the thread tightly. At this stage it is easy to adjust the thread so that your segments are even.
If necessary clean up your pumpkin with additional felting.
Now we will make the green stalk and little leaf and twirly vine. Break off a little piece of green wool about the size of your little finger, about half an inch long. Roll it in your hands as you would a ball of playdough into a snake.
Tightly roll this ‘snake’ up into a tight, thin, spiral. Still holding onto your small green spiral tightly, and using the medium or small needle, felt it along the outside of the spiral… all around until it is a tight stalk. Leave one end fluffy. Carefully needle felt the other end flat.
To attach the stalk to your pumpkin, needle felt the fluffy end into the orange, indented, top of your pumpkin, trying to avoid the thread that has made the segments.
To make the leaf, take baby-fingernail sized piece of green wool into a small ball. Needle felt it onto your orange pumpkin.
To make the twirly vine, take an even smaller piece of green wool, roll it between the palms of your hands, pulling it longways, until it is a long thread-like length. Needle felt it onto your pumpkin.