Felt {Pumpkin} Chair Backs

Excited to have my very crafty friend Marie Thomas Designs in the house today to share with you the cutest PBK Knock off – EVER!! Take it away….

So maybe you’ve seen those adorable chair backs that Pottery Barn Kids has for every holiday. If you’re like me, you have to password protect yourself from the website by letting someone else pick the password and promise not to tell you. That is until the catalog arrives again and you’re promising “just this one last time…” to get it back. Or maybe not.

Either way, I made some knock-offs. And it wasn’t so bad! I decided to try and make them myself because my chairs have solid backs and thus I needed something to wrap around or have back-pack type straps. And that totally is not Pottery Barn’s Seagrass chair…… OK fine…it is.

So here is what I ended up with

And here is how I started:

Items Needed:
Pumpkin Template with facial features
Orange Felt
Cotton lining (Optional feature, but I used black fabric)
Black felt
Craft Interfacing
Green Polyester felt
White craft thread & an appropriate size needle so you’re not waxing the end like I was to thread it.
Sewing machine (But you could easily sew this by hand)

For the templates, I drew out the shapes in Silhouette Studio and then sliced it in half. The pumpkin was a very simplified version of what a pumpkin silhouette would be. The eyes were just two triangles and the nose a scaled down copy of the eyes. Before I sliced the pumpkin in half, I placed the face in there to make sure everything fit nicely. I can offer my files up for download if anyone wants them. Otherwise, I think it would be fairly easy to draw them out by hand. I cut everything on card stock with with the cameo, taped the pumpkin halves together and headed over to materials. For each chair back, I traced out the pumpkin body for two in orange felt, two lining pieces, and two of the craft interfacing. I used non-fusible heavy duty because I didn’t want to iron the felt. You could probably skip the interfacing all together if you got your hands on the large polyester felt sheets(they are pretty stiff on their own), but I couldn’t find any.

I also traced out the Jack O’Lantern face pieces, a 3″ wide piece of felt cut lengthwise for the center(I didn’t measure this out lengthwise, I ended up trimming at the end). You could go down to 2″ wide, but I wouldn’t do any more than 3″ so that you keep shape. Then I hand cut out a stem piece from the green polyester felt.

First order of business was to sew the Jack O’Lantern face on. Both sides of the felt are the same so coin toss and start pinning. I pinned them on and adjusted as needed and then sewed them using black thread.

Now that your pumpkin is staring you down, it’s time to give him a {crafty} touch. I failed to mention band-aids in the supply list, but they will come in handy if you hand stitch anything like the way I do. I drew blood more than once. Maybe even shed a tear. This step is just to highlight his saucy geometric eyes and nose and his taunting smile. Literally just stitching over and under around the eyes and nose. Then a straight stitch following the edges of his mouth. You could also do a dashed stitch around his eyes and nose if you wanted. It’s really between you and your pumpkin. Not too close together. You could even make the stitches farther apart than I did. My only advice is to not stab yourself in the finger blindly like you didn’t know there was a needle coming back up or something.

After the front was completed I moved on to the back piece of orange felt. As I mentioned before, my chairs aren’t conducive for a vertical strapping system. If you have ladder back type chairs, this is where we will differ. I suggest cutting a strap or two to go around the top of your chair. Measure out how much you may need to velcro it on and sew in a different direction than what I am showing you.

I pinned mine across the length of the back. For a vertical strapping, I would suggest sewing it from center and up to give it stability at the opening.

This is after being sewn on.

Now for the fun part! [Read: I made the mistakes off-camera to perfect for you on camera]. So now I”m going to add the lining and the interfacing. And they need to go in a specific order. Line up your Jack O’Lanter face sandwiched with the black lining on the front(With the face) and the interfacing attached to the opposite side. See picture below.

Pin the three layers together and sew as close to the edge as possible from one side, around the bottom to the other side leaving the top of the pumpkin open. I used less than a 1/4″ seam allowance. If you are using heavy duty interfacing, it’s not vital for it to be lined up to the edges. In fact, I ended up trimming it down around the sides and bottoms to lessen the thickness when sewing my second chairback. It will be contained within the walls anyhow. Then you’re going to turn it inside out. Before I did that though, I used scissors to trim the edges past the seam to get rid of extra bulk. Flip the black lining down towards the bottom and around over the interfacing.

Next I’m going to put the green stem in between two of the layers and pin. It should look something like this.

I then just took a zigzag stitch straight across the top to close up the layers and encase the stem.

You’re going to follow the same steps for the back piece(sans stem). ONE VERY IMPORTANT DETAIL HERE THOUGH. Your straps need to be folded in towards the center of the pumpkin away from the edges and sandwiched inside your black lining piece on the front with your interfacing behind the orange felt once again. This is so that when you turn your pumpkin inside out, you won’t have sewn them in! Make sense? (So instead of your pumpkin face staring at the black lining, it will be your pumpkin chair straps!) Don’t forget to zigzag stitch (or stitch of your choice) across the top to close it up.

If you’re headache free still, let us continue. Next, I started pinning my 3″ wide center section around the sides and bottom of my front pumpkin body.

Sew the front and center sections together using a seam allowance as close to the edge as possible.

Now with your front and center seamed together, you need to pin the back side of the pumpkin on. See how the black lining sandwiches nicely between the felt!

Sew around the edges once again seaming it all together. It will be slightly harder to maneuver it all around, but it’s not so bad. I let the sewing machine do all the work and just slightly guided the rotation with my left hand on the outside. I trimmed off excess orange center felt.

You’re ALMOST DONE!! Last piece is easy. Simply decide how you want your straps to fasten. I just attached some white velcro.

You’re DONE! Fill’r UP! Or surprise the kids with something new each/day or week. They will get plenty of candy on Halloween so coloring pages or little crafts are always fun! I hope this was clear enough for everyone to follow along. I know I left out some measurements, but to be honest, I never really measured myself!

*You could also use black craft thread to stitch around the edges like the eyes and the stem. I personally couldn’t weather any more needle pricks and liked the piping look the black lining gave it. Maybe next year I will do it to spruce them up.:) *I do have plans to add some quick additional strapping similar to this for extra support on my chairs. I may just even use some orange ribbon.

If you’d like to follow along with Marie Thomas Designs make sure you visit her on Facebook and click that “like” button!!

Related posts:

Easy Pumpkin Carving with Pumpkin Masters How to Make a Split Pumpkin Monogram | September Silhouette Special Pumpkin {Teeth} {Chalkboard} Rolled Felt Flower Frame