‘Amigurumi Tips’ Archives
Too tight foundation row?
For some amigurumi pieces, you'll need to crochet a foundation row, instead of working straight out from a circle. An example is when I was crocheting the leg of Gordon the Flamingo. Sometimes, when you begin with a foundation chain, the stitches in the chain can be too small, making the top of the leg (shown at left) look a little anemic. [...]
How to work with two yarns at once
Some patterns (particularly those for items which are going to be felted, such as Gerry the Bear, at left) require you to crochet or knit holding two yarns together at once. I often get asked about the best way to work with two yarns at once. So, in this post, I'll talk about the pros and cons of three different ways of working with a double [...]
What size crochet hook do I use for amigurumi?
Of course, this question is easy-peasy if you have the exact yarn called for in the pattern. But what if you want to substitute yarn for your amigurumi? Fortunately, this is easy to do too! The most important thing when making amigurumi is to make sure that your hook is appropriately sized for your yarn, so that you get a nice, solid fabric. [...]
Attaching limbs before or after stuffing?
Most FreshStitches patterns instruct you to attach limbs to the body before stuffing the body (and attach facial features to the head before stuffing the head, etc). And I've been asked why. For me, it's easier and neater to do it this way. First, if you were to attach a limb after you have stuffed the body, you often get stuffing poking out. [...]
Placing limbs on amigurumi
A common problem in making amigurumi is placing the arms and legs evenly. In this post, we're going to talk about an easy way to place your arms and legs! At left is a body (of Graeme the Monkey, if you're wondering), and we'll need to attach two legs. Since we've crocheted through the back loop, our body has a great grid that we can use to [...]
How to keep stuffing from poking through amigurumi
It's a common problem when making amigurumi: the stuffing sometimes can be seen through the stitches, something nobody wants! Fortunately, there are a couple of ways to minimize the stuffing from poking through the stitches. The photo above is one of my amigurumi... and you can't see a single bit of white fluff! Crochet through the back [...]
Single Crochet decrease terminology
Crochet patterns can be confusing if you aren't used to them... and the task is made more difficult by the existence of lots of different ways to say the same thing. In particular, many patterns use different terminology to express a single crochet decrease. In this post, I'm going to outline the different abbreviations that are out there. [...]
Selecting stuffing for amigurumi
I've written a post with tips on how to stuff your amigurumi, but have skipped the most important question of all: how to you pick your stuffing? In this post, I'm going to talk about some considerations when selecting a stuffing, and some alternatives to consider. Keep in mind though, picking a stuffing has more to do with personal preference [...]
Making clean color changes in Amigurumi
Many times, a crochet amigurumi pattern will have you change colors: that is, do some stitches in one color, and other stitches in a second color. I've posted a video about how to change colors cleanly. But what do you do after that? When you're crocheting a stuffed animal, there is often more than one color change. In this post, we're going [...]
Vertical Stripes in Crochet
Getting horizontal stripes in crochet isn't too tricky: crochet one row (or round) in one color, then crochet the next row in a second color, and repeat. But, how do you crochet vertical stripes? We did this technique while we were crocheting Mr. Scrappy, the scrap animal. Mr. Scrappy is a free FreshStitches pattern that allows you to use up [...]
