Happy Tip Tuesday!
Today, I’m going to talk to you about an instruction that pops up in Flavia the Unicorn:
Flatten ear and then fold ear in half, and attach to the head (at rounds 6-7) so that the opening of the fold faces forward.
The potentially tricky bit in this instruction is that you’re attaching the folded ear to two rounds. Let’s chat about it!
One round vs. two rounds
Why does Flavia’s pattern tell you to attach the ear to two rounds, whereas other patterns instruct you to attach a folded ear to one round? (Have a peek at this tutorial for the step-by-step on one-round attaching.)
This is the ear from the Choose Your Own Adventure Dragon pattern, one where you attach to one round. See how the ear is floppy? There’s nothing wrong with that… it makes the dragon cute!
But, notice how Flavia’s ear sticks out? That extra structure is the result of attaching the ear more firmly at the base: to two rounds.
How to attach a folded ear to two rounds
All right. How do you get this perky ear? I’ll show you how it’s done.
First, flatten the ear and whipstitch it closed (check out this post if you’re rusty on that step).
Count how many stitches you have. If your final round had 24 stitches, your flattened piece will be 12 stitches wide. With your long tail, whipstitch half of the ear stitches to one round:
Now, you want to whipstitch the other half of the ear stitches to the second round. This means that you’re stitching in the opposite direction (follow the arrow!). . .
Yay! The ear is fully attached! To make the front of the ear look nice and tidy, I run my tapestry needle through the starting stitch, then tie a knot on the wrong side. This draws the fronts together.
Ta da!
You can use this trick on any folded ear… and it’ll stand up just a bit more!
Here are handy links to all the posts about attaching parts. . .
- How to Attach Limbs to Amigurumi
- How to Attach Amigurumi Arms and Legs with Single Crochet
- Tips for Attaching Amigurumi Features
- Which Loop Do You Use When Attaching Pieces?
- How to Attach Nicely Rounded Amigurumi Pieces
- How to Give Your Amigurumi a Shapely Neck
- How to Attach a Flattened Piece to Amigurumi
- How to Attach a Folded Ear to Amigurumi
- How to Attach a Folded Ear to Two Rounds
- How to Attach Flat Spots Using Running Stitch
- How to Attach with Single Crochet
- Tips for Attaching a Dress to Your Doll
Return to the main table of contents for Let’s Learn to Crochet Amigurumi.
Move on to the lessons about faces and details.
Happy stitching!
Thank you, I really like this tip, just what I needed.
Thank you. You really are an expert. Which clearly goes with the territory of doing what you do for a living, but I like that you don’t forget that the stuff that is second nature for you needs explaining sometimes. Thanks.
@Fiona-grace Thank you! It can be amazing how many ‘little things’ go into something we’re familiar with doing… I try very hard to spell them out 🙂