Welcome back for October's free pattern review. I'm giving up on trying to publish these on fridays, I will just post them when they are done. This month I have deliberately posted on a Thursday anyway as its a fun seasonal pattern I really enjoyed making.

I will continue to reviews a free knitting patterns which is available somewhere other than Ravelry. Ravelry is a great source of free patterns and some are also available on Ravelry but its much harder to find good, free patterns via a general google search. All Free Pattern Reviews can be found here. 

Bibbity Bobbity Pumpkins

This fun pattern is designed by Lynne Rowe and is available for free on her blog. There is also a low price downloadable copy available on Etsy if you prefer, but I used the free version.

I'm not usually much of a toy knitter, to be perfectly honest with you while I quite enjoy knitting toys in the round (I'm not a fan of sewing lots of tiny pieces together) I've had a few less than great experiences with putting faces on the things that leave me with something that could feature in a horror movie. Not really what I'm looking for! I did think I could manage a plain pumpkin tho and who knows, maybe it will be a cute seasonal photo prop in the future. 

Details

The pattern is has details for various different sizes based on the yarn and needle size used. As I want it as a photo prop I went for the smallest size. Tension isn't critical, it's more important to create a dense fabric the stuffing doesn't show through. The pattern is for a rectangular scarf with a biased dropped stitch pattern. 

The pattern is knitted flat with some shaping then seamed, before stuffing and a stalk added. There are clear instruction on how to achieve that perfect pumpkin shape. The stitch pattern is a lovely texture and after a few rows I had worked out the pattern, its not as difficult as it looks but you do just need to concentrate on the first couple of rows.

My Pumpkin

I didn't have any DK yarn the right colour, so I used 4ply held double and followed the instructions for the DK single strand size. This worked fine and I used less than 20g of yarn for the body. I used a scrap of Brown 4ply and knitted a short icord for the stalk. As its not a toy and I don't plan on ever needing to wash it, I stuffed it with yarn ends rather than toy filling. The shaping was very easy and I was surprised I got it looking nice and pumpkinny first time. My kids then said it needed a face so rather than embroider one I cut triangle eyes and a halloween mouth from black felt so they are removable. I still prefer it plain, but I do think a large one knitted with chunky yarn and a felt face added would be a great halloween decoration!

Hand Dyed Yarn Choice

Pumpkins don't have to be orange, I think it would look good in lots of autumnal colours or something more whacky for a halloween decoration - what about purple or lime green! A variegated yarn would be fun and if held double give an interesting marled effect. I used Linger but any sock yarn or DK yarn would work well for the size I chose. For a larger pumpkin we do have some thicker yarns.

Advantages of this pattern

• Quick knit with clear instructions
• Create reusable, non-plastic, decorations for autumn or halloween
• Different sizes available
• Great stash buster, and you can use up ends that are too small for anything else as stuffing if you wish!

Do let me know if you make this pattern and I'd love to hear your recommendations for patterns to review in the future. The comments are open.

Link to Free Blog Post Bibbity Bobbity Pumpkins
Link to Lynne's Website