How much yarn for a crochet pumpkin? Metres by size

The quick answer, by pumpkin size

Measure across the widest part of the pumpkin you want, without the stem, and find its row. Many patterns give the distance around rather than across, so for those we divided the circumference by pi, which is close enough for a squat, round pumpkin. The metres column is the middle figure of the patterns in that group, with the full range in brackets. The last column turns it into weight in Stylecraft Special of the same thickness, using the lengths Wool Warehouse lists: 295m per 100g for DK, 196m for Aran and 144m for Chunky, and 136m per 200g ball for Special XL super chunky.

Most rows rest on two to five pumpkins, and the DK row on just one. Most of the free pumpkin patterns we found are American and written for worsted, which is close to UK aran, and only one DK pumpkin we found states its yardage. If your pattern gives its own quantity, use that.

Where the numbers come from

We opened pumpkin patterns from 12 designers and yarn companies and kept the 19 that state both a finished size and a yarn quantity. Eighteen are free. The other, Bella Coco’s Chestnut Falls, is a paid pattern whose shop listing gives the sizes and yardage, and it and Lulu Loves’ Rustic Pumpkins come in UK as well as US terms. Yards were converted at 0.9144 metres.

There are two kinds of figure in the table. Most are the designer’s approximate usage, such as Jo to the World’s 55 yards for her small pumpkin. Five are balls to buy, mostly from the Yarnspirations kit lists, and the table marks them “to buy”: they are an upper limit, not what the pumpkin used. We haven’t made these pumpkins ourselves. The quantities are the designers’ own, and every pattern is linked at the bottom of the page.

The 30cm pumpkin that uses 87 metres

Metres only compare pumpkins of the same yarn weight. The Bernat Chunky Crochet Pumpkin, designed by Tamara Kelly of Moogly, is about 30.5cm across, worked on a 25mm hook and needs no stuffing. Its kit lists two balls of Bernat Blanket Big in Gold and one in Malachite, and each ball holds 29 metres and weighs 300g. That’s 87 metres at most, less than a 15cm aran pumpkin, but up to 900g of yarn.

Set that beside The Crochet Crowd’s Full Spectrum Braided Pumpkin, 23cm across in worsted, which uses half a 402m ball, about 201 metres. That’s more than twice the length for a smaller pumpkin, yet only about 125g of yarn, because the whole ball weighs 250g. Bernat’s finger-crochet pumpkin tells the same story: 28cm across from one 600g ball holding 66 metres.

So for jumbo and chenille yarns, plan in balls and grams, not metres. The Crochet Crowd’s Big Plush Pumpkin, 35.6cm across in super chunky Bernat Blanket, uses “almost 2 full balls”, close to 600g.

Bigger pumpkins eat yarn faster than they grow

Three patterns give quantities for several sizes, so they show how yarn changes with size inside one design. In each, the yarn grew faster than the width. Jo to the World’s Easy Pumpkins double in width from small to large, and the yarn goes from 55 to 175 yards, 3.2 times as much. Bella Coco’s Chestnut Falls goes from 48 to 81.5cm around, 1.7 times wider, and from 87 to 260 yards, three times the yarn. Crochet Dreamz’s star stitch pumpkin grows more gently: 1.6 times wider for 1.75 times the yarn.

If each pattern’s yarn grows smoothly between its sizes, a pumpkin half as wide again needs about 1.7 times the yarn in Crochet Dreamz’s, twice as much in Jo to the World’s and 2.3 times in Bella Coco’s. That’s roughly what you’d expect of a hollow skin, whose surface grows faster than its width, but three patterns are an observation, not a formula. Our amigurumi guide saw the same in toys: PlanetJune’s gingerbread man, made 44% larger, took 2.7 times the yarn.

What makes one pumpkin hungrier than another

The patterns use two main methods. Most are a flat rectangle, often worked in back loops for ribs, then seamed into a tube and gathered at both ends. The rest are worked in the round like a small amigurumi: Bernat’s jumbo pumpkin from the bottom up, Yarn and Chai’s Petite Autumn and Halloween pumpkins from a magic ring, and The Crochet Crowd’s in joined rounds.

Method alone didn’t sort them. Dividing each worsted pumpkin’s metres by its width, those worked in rows used 4.8 to 9 metres per centimetre and those worked in rounds 5.1 to 10.8, so the two overlap. Height told us more. Yarn and Chai’s Petite Autumn and Halloween pumpkins use the same crossed double crochet (US crossed single crochet) in front loops, yet the squat 9cm Petite used 5.1 metres per centimetre of width and the Halloween pumpkin, nearly as tall as it is wide and with a face in a second colour, 10.8.

Crochet Spot shows it inside one pattern. Its yellow and black chunky pumpkins are both 30.5cm around, but the black one is twice as tall, 13cm against 6.5cm, and takes 80 yards against 40. If you want a tall, stacked-looking pumpkin rather than a squat one, size it by height as well as width.

The other two figures above 10 metres per centimetre are textured: The Crochet Crowd’s Big Plush, covered in front-post cables, and Petals to Picots’ T-shirt yarn pumpkin, worked in back-loop slip stitch. At the thrifty end sit plain rows: Crochet Spot’s yellow pumpkin in double crochet (US single crochet) at 3.8, Daisy Cottage Designs’ bulky version at 4.2 and Jo to the World’s small ribbed pumpkin at 4.8. The first two are chunky, which covers more ground per metre, so part of that saving is the yarn. Still, if you want the most pumpkin for your yarn, a squat, plain rectangle is the place to start.

Stems, leaves and stuffing

A crocheted stem and leaves don’t add much, but on a small pumpkin they show. Jo to the World asks for 3 yards of brown for the stem and 8 of green for the leaves on every size, and those 11 yards are a fifth as much again as the small pumpkin’s 55. Crafty Kitty Crochet allows 10 yards of stem colour for her small plushie pumpkin and 20 for the large, and Bella Coco just 3 to 3.5 yards of contrast colour.

Most designers skip the crocheted stem altogether. Eleven of the 19 patterns finish with a cinnamon stick, a twig or a dowel, from Yarn and Chai’s glued cinnamon sticks to the “small stick from the yard” in Petals to Picots’ T-shirt pumpkin and the sticks Crochet Spot suggests you find “along the wood line”. That saves a few metres and a fiddly bit of finishing.

Every pattern in our list that mentions filling uses toy stuffing, with one clear exception: the Bernat jumbo chenille pumpkin, which Yarnspirations says “requires no stuffing”. No designer gives a weight of stuffing, and they don’t agree on how much. Yarn and Chai says of the Halloween pumpkin, “Don’t be skimpy”. Jo to the World warns against overstuffing because the stitches shouldn’t be stretched, and The Crochet Crowd says stuffing should not show through the Big Plush’s stitches. For its Fall Humdinger, The Crochet Crowd goes further: overstuffed, it looks like a perfect magazine pumpkin, and the design is meant to keep its natural folds.

From metres to a shopping list

One 100g ball of Stylecraft Special Aran, at 196 metres, covers two to four small worsted pumpkins of 9 to 11cm, or one medium pumpkin of around 15cm with enough left for a small one. A large 21 to 23cm worsted pumpkin needs most of a ball, or slightly more. One 100g ball of Special DK, at 295 metres, covers about four of Yarn and Chai’s Little Rustic Pumpkins.

Stylecraft Special DK, Aran and Chunky were £2.35 a 100g ball at Wool Warehouse, and Special XL was £5.59 for 200g, checked 3 October 2026, before delivery. At that price the yarn in a medium aran pumpkin costs about £1.30, but you still buy whole balls. If you’re making a patch in several colours, enter each colour as its own row in the yarn budget calculator so each one rounds up to whole balls, and use the grams-to-metres converter if your yarn’s label gives only weight.

Common questions

Sources and scope

• yarnandchai.com/little-rustic-pumpkin/
• yarnandchai.com/petite-autumn-pumpkin/
• yarnandchai.com/halloween-pumpkin/
• crochetdreamz.com/crochet-pumpkin-free-pattern/
• jototheworld.com/easy-pumpkins-crochet-pattern
• daisycottagedesigns.net/crochet-pumpkin-pattern/
• thecrochetcrowd.com/free-full-spectrum-crochet-pumpkin-pattern-with-crochet-braid-stitch-tutorial/
• thecrochetcrowd.com/crochet-fall-humdinger-pumpkin-pattern/
• thecrochetcrowd.com/big-plush-crochet-pumpkin-pattern/
• www.craftykittycrochet.com/2021/09/11/plushie-pumpkins-crochet-pattern/
• www.crochetspot.com/free-crochet-pattern-chunky-crochet-pumpkins/
• bellacococrochet.com/products/chestnut-falls-pumpkin
• lululoves.co.uk/item/free-crochet-pattern-rustic-pumpkins.html
• www.petalstopicots.com/rustic-crochet-pumpkin-made-with-t-shirt-yarn/
• www.handylittleme.com/free-crochet-pumpkin-pattern-for-beginners/
• www.handylittleme.com/rustic-farmhouse-crochet-pumpkin-pattern/
• www.yarnspirations.com/products/bernat-cable-crochet-pumpkins
• www.yarnspirations.com/products/bernat-chunky-crochet-pumpkin
• www.yarnspirations.com/products/bernat-extra-thick-finger-crochet-pumpkin
• www.yarnspirations.com/products/bernat-blanket-big-yarn-300g-10-5oz
• www.yarnspirations.com/products/bernat-blanket-extra-thick-yarn-600g-21-2oz
• www.yarnspirations.com/products/bernat-blanket-yarn-300g-10-5oz
• www.yarnspirations.com/products/bernat-forever-fleece-yarn
• www.yarnspirations.com/products/red-heart-all-in-one-granny-square-yarn-250g-8-8oz-1
• www.woolwarehouse.co.uk/yarn/stylecraft-special-dk-all-colours
• www.woolwarehouse.co.uk/yarn/stylecraft-special-aran-all-colours
• www.woolwarehouse.co.uk/yarn/stylecraft-special-chunky-all-colours
• www.woolwarehouse.co.uk/yarn/stylecraft-special-xl-all-colours

Sources checked 3 October 2026. Label facts come from the linked references; worked purchase examples and arithmetic are our own illustrations.