Most people tell me that they’ve got a handle on the crocheting part… but when it comes to assembling amigurumi pieces, they dread it! That makes me sniffle… making amigurumi should be 100% fun!
So, in this post, I’ll show you how to attach limbs easily and evenly… taking all the stress out of sewing. The trick to easy attaching is planning out your placement ahead of time. It’s a piece of cake after that!
Plan where to place your limbs
We’re making a cow (not too late for you to join in on our Cow Crochet-a-long!), and I’m about to attach the legs/arms.
The instructions say, ‘attach legs to rounds 9-14′. Of course, this is just a suggestion! You can attach your legs wherever you’d like… but I’ve told you where I attach mine so there’s no guesswork on your part!
What you want to do is find out where round 9 is, and place a locking stitch marker there. Start counting (see the ridges?) from the center:
Count until you’re at round 9, and place a marker. Place another at round 14. Now you know where your leg should be located on the body!
If you find that your pieces tend to move around a lot when attaching, you might want to go one step further and use locking stitch markers to hold your piece in place. The more you prepare your pieces, the easier sewing will be!
Stuff your limbs
Grab some Polyfill and stuff your limbs:
I like to stuff both legs at once, so I can be sure they are the same size:
Sewing!
It’s not as hard as you think… I promise! We’re going to use a simple whipstitch to attach the limbs… the important thing is to let your guides (the rows and stitch markers) do all the fancy work!
Thread the needle
To begin: thread a tapestry needle with the long tail of a leg. As the first step, I like to hide the knot… so I run my needle through the first stitch on the leg:
This hides the knot beautifully! See?
Whipstitch!
The leg that we’re attaching has 24 stitches. So, if we attach along 6 stitches to round 9, 6 stitches going up to round 14, 6 stitches on round 14, and then 6 stitches going back down to round 9… the leg will be attached evenly! So, begin by threading the needle through one stitch on the body and one stitch on the leg:
That’s it! You did a whipstitch! Check out this little video if you want to see it in action:
Continue to do 6 stitches on round 9… and then continue stitching (sorta turning 90 degrees) to get to round 14. See? You’re using the stitches on the body to guide you! Easy!
As long as you keep attaching one stitch of the body to one stitch of the leg, you’ll stay on track!
Continue all the way around, and tie a knot on the inside of your work.
Ta da!
Repeat for second leg
Now, at this point, you may want to get picky. See how there’s a jag in the leg where the colors changed?
If that jog bothers you… no problem! Just decide where to place your second leg so that the jog ends up at the back of the cow! See… I’m going to put my second leg over here (on the other side of the jog), leaving the color change nearly invisible:
Now attach the second leg… same as the first! Don’t forget to place your helpful markers if you need them!
Repeat for arms!
You’ve got it down, now! Attach the arms using the same method!
You did it!
That wasn’t so bad, was it?
Let me know when you give it a try… and tell me if these tips helped you! (maybe sewing *won’t* be your least favorite part, anymore…)
This post taught me so much! I love how the rainbow cow is looking, he is going to be super cute!
Looks to me as if your sewing on the legs BEFORE stuffing the body, do you have any tricks to make it easier when all parts a stuffed and fastened off ?
Waiting hopefully
Cindy
I do all of my attaching before stuffing the body, since it makes hiding the ends much easier!