I have often told people that with enough trial and error I can pretty much crochet any stuffed shape I see.
So, it is more than a bit ironic that I am having so much trouble duplicating one of my own designs. I even took notes the first time. And yet, like Charlie Brown, I find myself in the search of the great pumpkin.
It started with one of those ah-ha moments. After looking at pumpkins made by others that were round without the interesting ribbing that comes naturally on most pumpkins, I had a light-bulb moment as to how to make a pumpkin with the stitches going vertically and how to create the ribs and valleys.
I thought about it for a few days and picked up some scrap yarn and one of my favorite needles. Euuew, this idea of mine sure takes a long time to crochet but I just knew it was going to be great! So, around and around I went making something that looked more like an octopus than a pumpkin.
But, when it finally came together, it really did look like a pumpkin. The picture distorted the ribs a bit, they are nice and straight and oh so pumpkiny. Oh, but my poor pumpkin ran into a bit of trouble with the stem. It looks a bit goofy and wrong somehow. Ah, ha, another lightbulb moment came when I realized the top of my pumpkin was too flat and needed to be more indented and perhaps even pulled down in the middle a bit.
OK, so, my idea worked and with a few slight alterations I should have a pumpkin pattern certainly worthy of posting on The Crafty Tipster and maybe even worthy of trying to sell over on Etsy.
Now with my limited stash of rusty orange yarn, I took my notes and started working on what I thought was a final version of the pattern which would include a heavier and stronger base as well as fixing the whole stem issue.
Ah, I may have met my match in the great pumpkin chase.
After at least 6 attempts and spending more hours than I want to think about, the closest I’ve come to my prototype is the round ball of orange-ness that is in the picture. It’s the perfect shape for a ribbed apple – lol.
So, as Halloween approaches, I guess my totally awesome, only crochet pumpkin pattern you would ever want remains just out of reach. I might give it another go and it might even be in time for some folks to make it for their own holiday activities but it will be way after such a pattern would be truly marketable for this year.
My pair of unmatched pumpkins now haunt me, representing those crafty inspirations that somehow fell short.
In the meantime, I did design this cool crochet flower pattern that looks a bit like a snowball mum flower over on The Crafty Tipster.
If you crochet, you might want to check it out or try one of my other free crochet flower patterns.
Anyway, my great pumpkin chase has got me to wondering how many of you have that secret place in your craft room where you stash your inspired failures. Do you keep them in hopes of one day figuring out where they went wrong? or do you make them disappear by frogging them? or does the family cat or dog get a new toy? I do a bit of all three.