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This easy pumpkin knitting pattern is perfect for beginners and knitters with more experience. It’s worked flat using medium weight yarn and a simple ribbed stitch to give it lots of texture and make it fun to knit.
About Knitting Pumpkins
There are a lot of pumpkin knitting patterns available, but one of the great things about knitting pumpkins is, once you have the basic idea down, you can make a pumpkin that’s exactly the way you want it.
You can change yarn and needle size and/or the number of stitches you cast on to make a pumpkin that’s larger or smaller than the original pattern suggested.
You can add any stitch pattern you like (as long as it’s not holey). You can swap from working flat to working in the round, or vice versa.
Pumpkins are a great way to dabble in knitting design and making a project your own, and you can never have too many, that’s just science. So let’s explore this easy pumpkin knitting pattern so you can make your own!
Pumpkin Knitting Supplies
To make this particular pumpkin in the same way that I did, you’ll need around 100 yards of medium/worsted weight yarn. I used Bartlett Yarns 2-ply in color Rust Heather. You can use whatever color you like; pumpkins don’t need to be orange!
You’ll also need one pair of US size 7/4.5 mm knitting needles, some Poly-fil or similar stuffing (I buy the big bag and it takes me a couple of years to go through, but I’m always glad I have some when I need it!), scissors and a yarn needle.
If you want to knit the stem as shown, you’ll also need a small amount of yarn for that, and two correspondingly sized double pointed knitting needles to make I-cord. I used medium weight yarn and size 7 needles again, but you don’t have to.
Size
Again you can make your pumpkin whatever size you like, but mine is about 7 inches/17.75 cm tall, including the stem, and 18 inches/45.75 cm around, stuffed.
The actual piece I knit was 8 inches/20.25 cm square. Isn’t ribbing amazing?
Gauge
Gauge is not that important, you just want to make sure your stitches are firm enough that the stuffing won’t show through when the pumpkin is finished.
I got about 23 stitches and 21 rows per 4 inches in pattern, worked flat.
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Easy Pumpkin Knitting Pattern
This pumpkin knitting pattern uses a purl 2, knit 1 rib on the right/front side, so you would need a multiple of 3 stitches to make it work. I actually did 3+1 to make the pattern look consistent all the way around after finishing. So for a pumpkin the size of mine, here’s what you’ll do.
Cast on 46 stitches, or a multiple of 3+1. I use long-tail cast on, but you can use whatever cast-on method you like.
Row 1 (wrong/back side): *knit 2, purl 1. Repeat from * to the last stitch, knit 1.
Row 2 (right/front side): Purl 1, *knit 1, purl 2. Repeat from * across.
Repeat these two rows until piece measures 8 inches/20.25 cm, or to desired length. I made my piece square because I wanted to see what would happen, but there’s really no logic to how tall or short your pumpkin can be. Measure with your heart!
Cut yarn, leaving a long tail. Thread the yarn onto a yarn needle and slide all the stitches off the knitting needle onto the yarn.
Finishing Your Pumpkin
Once you have all the stitches on the yarn, pull tight. I like to go through all the stitches one more time and pull tight again. It might not completely close the hole, but get it as small as you can.
Take stitches across the gap to close up the hole. This is going to be the bottom so it’s totally fine if it’s not that pretty or if it ends up kind of flat.
To sew up the side, it’s basically mattress stitch, but one of the stitches is a purl. Make sure the side you want to be the outside is facing out, and stitch into the purl bump on that side of the pumpkin.
On the other side, you’re stitching into the v just like you normally do in mattress stitch.
This doesn’t have to be perfect, but do the best you can to make it look even and kind of hide that edge stitch in the seam so your knitting looks continuous.
When you’ve sewn a little more than half the seam you can start stuffing. Because this pumpkin is small you can wait until it’s done, but that’s about the time I start thinking this looks nothing like a pumpkin so I need some reassurance.
Keep stitching and stuffing until you get to the top.
Add a little more stuffing if you like.
Weave in and out of the stitches at the top of the pumpkin and pull tight to close the top. Here it’s ok if there’s a little hole left because we’ll cover it with the stem. Or if you want to use a stick it will be easy to install if there’s a hole.
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Pumpkin Stem
There are a lot of options for finishing your easy pumpkin knitting pattern with a stem you’ll love. I’ve used sticks from the yard, cinnamon sticks, a pipe cleaner, knit stems, crochet stems, no stem at all. Or flowers the lovely local Marshallese ladies made, if you’re lucky enough to have some of those.
This one is a little scrap from this fun multicolored yarn I made fingerless gloves out of years ago. I think the changing colors make it look a little more natural.
For this one I cast on 5 stitches and worked I-cord for 5 rows. Bind off and cut the yarn, leaving a tail for sewing.
Stitch the stem to the center top of the pumpkin. Bury any remaining yarn ends inside the pumpkin.
Now that you have this easy pumpkin knitting pattern under your belt you can make it bigger, smaller, turn it inside out, use a different rib pattern or a different stitch pattern entirely. Your imagination is the limit!
