I still have a number of crochet toys around the house that I made over a decade ago. Some of them have spent most of that time on my daughter’s bed, or stuffed into an overflowing drawer.

The older the toy, the most likely they are to have at some point needed a quick limb reattachment. But it’s not just because of their relative age, it’s because over the years I’ve improved a lot at sewing my amigurumi together. I’ve refined what techniques work, and added in some additional steps to give more strength and a more reliable join.

Today I’m going to run through my current process for sewing crochet toys together, so that you can keep create amigurumi plushies that are as likely to stay in one piece as possible.

The DO’s

DO Follow the instructions

I can’t say this enough. If you are following a crochet toy pattern and it includes sewing instructions, then obey those instructions. The artist who made your toy might well have designed them to sit in a certain position, or to have a particular pose, which will be enhanced by following their stitching guide.

DO Stuff to match your sewing

Some areas of your crocheted toy will be best sewn flat, others will need to be sewn padded. It depends on the look you are going for. Think carefully about how raised you want that area to be, and fill according to how you want to sew.

DO Consider position and posture

Before you begin to sew, think carefully about how you want your finished toy to be positioned. My favorite pose for crochet toys is probably seated, but for my more natural designs I like to have them standing upright which requires a different positioning of the legs for example.

DO Pin before you tack

Once you are happy with the pose, pin it in place. You can use standard pins, but I also make use of extra long ones for secure positioning, as well as safety pins or locking stitch markers to hold the limbs in place when I need to.

DO Tack before you sew

Once it’s pinned, I loosely sew the pieces together. The initial run of stitches goes along the central point between the two parts, and is mostly to secure them exactly where I want them before the pins come out.

DO Keep stitches tight

The final stitches need to be tight and go around the circumference of the joined position twice ideally. Keep the stitches close together, weaving in and out of each stitch at the points you want them to touch.

DO Use a thin needle

I always use the thinnest possible need that I can for sewing. This means that the needle width is dictated by being able to bring the yarn through the eye of the needle, but beyond that I just want the slimmest possible one. This is because the wider the needle is, the most risk there is of distorting the crocheted stitches when I sew.

DO Consider a tapestry needle for tight spaces

Where the join point is limited or the pieces are small, a tapestry needle is the best tool for the job. These slanted needles come in and out of the stitches more easily, without the needle to pull at the crocheted fabric or push too hard with the point.

DO Use a metal needle

Personally, I always join my toys with a metal needle. Plastic needles are fine for lots of jobs in the crochet world, but sewing toys together is easiest with metal. Steel needles are less likely to have burrs on them, and therefore to catch on the yarn and create pulls.

The DON’Ts

DON’T Scrimp on the yarn

Make sure that you have plenty of yarn for sewing and to leave a hefty loose end afterwards. Not only will this mean you are sure to have enough to secure the parts as much as you’d like, but that you have plenty of excess to hide inside the toy when you’re done. Something you will hopefully not need in the future for repairs, but will be very grateful of having if you do!

DON’T Use the same yarn for plush toys

Most of my projects are made in acrylic or cotton blend yarn, but for plush patterns you might want to consider joining your parts with a yarn that doesn’t match your project. This is because although plush yarn looks thick, it’s actually only got a very fine central strand. It’s hard to work in and out of existing stitches, and rather prone to snapping.
You will find that as long as you use a slightly thinner yarn weight, the joining strand is well hidden within the fluffy tendrils of your chenille yarn regardless.

DON’T Be afraid to undo and start again

Finally, it’s really important to remember that very little in crochet is set in stone. If it goes wrong, if it doesn’t look right, or if you are just not happy with your sewing, you can always snip it off and start again.

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Stuffing your crochet toys can make or break the finished project. I know the first few times I filled a toy with stuffing I made some rather big mistakes. Initially I filled on far too far, with the stitches bulging and stuffing poking up the gaps. But then in response the next time I used far too little, and it appeared more deflated balloon than cute cuddly toy.

Over a decade of crocheting has taught me how important it is to stuff your amigurumi the right way, and today I’m going to share some simple tips that should help you to successfully fill your crochet plushies up perfectly every time.

The DON’Ts

DON’T Understuff

Under stuffing is so easy to do, and it can feel like a bit of a better safe than sorry solution. But not filling the shape you’ve crocheted enough means it won’t hold the shape you’ve created. It will flop over and distort.
If you can press your finger and thumb together and clearly feel your digits together without padding in the way through your toy, you haven’t got enough stuffing in.

DON’T Overstuff

Overstuffing is just as bad on the distortion front, and worse in terms of visual noise. You will be able to see the stuffing poking through the stretched stitches.
Your stitches should look the same size and spacing after you’ve stuffed it as they did before. Any stretching out or gaping, and it’s too full.

DON’T Just fill with yarn scraps

Yarn scraps can be a great addition to toy stuffing, but they rarely make a good stuffing by themselves.

DON’T Forget to stuff before you close

It sounds obvious, but we’ve all been there. More than once over the past decade I’ve closed the shape I was making without putting an ounce of stuffing inside.
Don’t worry if this has happened though, just carefully unpick the closed point and fill it up from there. At most usually you need to undo a round or two.

DON’T Panic

Stuffing is something that can totally change the outcome of a project, but it’s also something that is relatively easy to fix when it goes wrong. So don’t panic!

The DO’s

DO Check the filling instructions

If you are following a pattern, they will give you instructions on stuffing. Some will be vague, just writing fill now, others will give more exact details. They might tell you how to spread out the padding, or where to fill up to and how full to make it.
If the details are given, then follow them and trust the pattern.

DO Add toy filling in small pieces not one large wad

I initially used to fill toys by pushing in as much padding at a time as I could. This wasn’t the best way. The ideal is to tear off little pieces, the size of a cotton wool ball, and place them in one at a time.

DO Spread stuffing it out evenly

Unless the instructions say otherwise, space the wadding evenly within the structure. I start from the furthest point, then fill around the sides, and finally fill the center. This tends to give the best even distribution.

DO Try different stuffing materials

I tend to use toy safe stuffing for most of my amigurumi, and if they are being kept by me or my kids I’ll fill the central section with yarn scraps or other recycled padding like leftover cushion padding or duvet filler. Scraps from clothing can also make good additional toy stuffing, provided you cut it into fairly fine strips first.

DO Think about the end user

But, a caveat to using random stuffing material is you need to think about whose going to use or own your crochet toy when it’s finished. If you are selling it then I’d use a padding that is certified toy safe only, the same if you are gifting it to a young child where there is the small risk of a choke hazard.

DO Consider using tights/stockings to hold the stuffing

If your stitches are too loose and your project is completed aside from the stuffing, then you can fill the toy inside some old stockings or tights instead of abandoning the piece and starting again.
Next time, try to tighten up your tension and check that you aren’t accidentally making a taller stitch than you need too. This can sometimes happen with the confusion between the US and UK crochet terms.

DO Use a tool if you can’t reach easily

Some areas of toys are harder to fill than others. For long skinny limbs I use the handle end of a crochet hook, but it’s also been suggested to me that a chopstick can do the job well too, which I think sounds very helpful too!

DO Take the posture of the toy into account

Some areas of your toy will need to be more filled with padding than others. Any supporting structures like necks will need to be filled more generously than those which don’t play a structural role.

DO Look at it when you’re done

Before you close your piece, hold it out in front of you and take a look from a variety of angles. Make sure you are happy with the shape. At this point it’s easy to remove or add wadding if you have to.

DO Finish carefully

Sew and tie off securely, and weave in a long tail when you’re done. I recommend leaving a good couple of feet of loose tail, this will ensure you have plenty for sewing and makes it less of a frustrating situation if you do need to open it back up again at some point.

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When I began to crochet my own plushies, I often found that they gently nodded forward, either over time or immediately after I made them. And the reason basically always boils down to angles, weight, and, at the end of the day, our eternal foe, gravity.

But there is no reason to sadly accept floppy heads on your amigurumi, because I’m going to share several methods that I use to ensure my crochet toys’ heads stay upright and pointing in the direction I want them to.

• Stuffing, tension and stitch style
• Adding some extra support

Stuffing

New crocheters often struggle to fill their toys with the right amount of stuffing. If you overfill, it can make your amigurumi look distorted (I still have a couple of my earliest toys where you can see the stuffing making its escape out of badly stretched stitches!). But if you under fill, it can lose its structure and ability to retain the posture you’ve created, regardless of other factors.

This is why I always recommend you check your filling first, before going to more complex measures to resolve the issue. Sometimes I find that just pushing a little more wadding into the neck space can help your toy go from dozing off to fully alert.

Tension and Stitch Style

Everyone has a different natural tension. Mine is quite tight, and has been since my first few months in this hobby. But some people’s tension is much looser, and this can result in stitches that are a little more open and therefore less rigid.

A good way to check your tension is to make a sampler up of a 2D item, like a garment, and check the stitch count in comparison with the pattern. If you fit fewer stitches into an inch than they do, your tension is looser. You can try tightening your tension by holding your yarn more firmly in your non-dominant hand, and it can sometimes help to hold your yarn hand closer to your hook.

Yarning under instead of over can also create tighter stitches, but there is a lot of personal preference to this one. I’m a yarn over person, and always will be regardless of the pattern! Which is why, in the case of super floppy heads, I go with adding in some extra support.

Felt

Felt is easily available from craft stores, simple to snip to size and roll up. I recommend taking a section of felt that will stretch from the top of the head to half way into the body piece.

Foam

You can do the same thing with foam, and I actually prefer this because I find it more supportive, and just as easy to curl up and into shape. It’s also a bit easier to cut with scissors too. As with the felt, make sure it goes well into each piece to give maximum support, and ideally it should be as wide as the diameter of the neck section when tightly rolled.

Choose a color of foam or felt that is as similar to the yarn in that section as possible, just in case it shows if any of the stitches gape over time.

Packing Peanuts

You can achieve the same impact with a packing peanut too, but the likelihood of getting one the exact size you need is slim. And if you use multiples, I find they aren’t long enough to stay in place as well. Also, watch out for eco packing peanuts – they dissolve when wet! You don’t want to accidentally insert one into your toy!

Pipe Cleaners

I’ve saved the best to last. I love using pipe cleaners for support, provided the toy is not too large. The reason I am such a fan of them for this use, is that they are sturdy and directional. That means if you want to point the head off at an angle, lift the next, or indeed add a trunk, they will bend wherever you want them too and hold the position really well. I’ve put them to great use in my scorpion and tarantula patterns for leg and tail support, and can’t recommend them enough.

The post Say Goodbye To Floppy Amigurumi Heads appeared first on Lucy Kate Crochet.

Today I’m going to demystify beginner crochet patterns, so that you can pick up any simple crochet toy pattern and follow it along without any added stress. I’ll cover the basic amigurumi stitches, and how to read different patterns’ terminology, abbreviations and the techniques involved.

If you want to have a hand with literally getting started in terms of casting on and tension, check out this article first.

Magic circles

We begin with a magic circle. This is a way of creating a central point to your crochet sphere that is completely closed. It enables us to put stuffing into toys without it falling out, and it just looks a lot neater than the other options.

Here’s how your magic circle begins:

• Wrap your yarn around your third and fourth fingers twice. Pinch the yarn ends between your thumb and little finger.

• Put your hook through the loops around your fingers, pick up the yarn and pull it through.

• Pick up the yarn and pull it through the loops on the hook.

Starting Your Toy

Your amigurumi pattern will almost always begin with a magic circle, into which you’ll work a set of single crochets. Usually 6 or 8, but it can differ.

The first instruction will be written as:

• ‘Make a magic circle of six stitches’
• Or ‘make a magic’, and then the next instruction will be along the lines of
• ‘Make 6 single crochets’, or ‘6sc’.

Single crochet decreases

Decreasing in the round involves joining two stitches together. Here’s how it’s done:

Hook through the next stitch, yarn over and pull through.

Hook straight through the next stitch, yarn over and pull through.

Yarn over and pull through all the loops on the hook.

This will be written as ‘decrease,’ ‘DEC’, ‘single crochet two together’ or ‘sc2tog’ with a number to denote how many times you’ll need to do it.

Learn by Doing

The best advice I can give you now when starting to crochet amigurumi, is to learn by doing. To fully understand how to make crochet stitches, the best thing you can do is to throw yourself into attempting them. Look at YouTube tutorials, read patterns, ask a friend, but make sure you’ve got some yarn and a hook in your yarn while you’re doing it. And you never know, it might be easier than you expect.

The post Beginner Amigurumi Crochet Stitches and Help Reading Patterns appeared first on Lucy Kate Crochet.

I never feel like my amigurumi designs are complete until they’ve got some finishing touches! And although there is something fun about simple crochet patterns, my passion really lies in pushing my crochet toys that extra mile.

Small details can have a huge impact on your finished toy. Whether you’re creating your own design, or giving your own unique twist to the pattern you’re following.

• Neat finishes
• Fantastic facial features
• Spots and stripes
• Different ways to crochet stitches

I recently gave my dragon veins on her wings with surface crochet, I added eyeliner to my donkey with hand sewing, and gave my hippo nostrils using teeny tiny safety eyes. But there is so much more than you can do. And I’m going to share my experience today, and inspire your creations onto the next level.

Neat Finishes

The first and most important way I ensure that my patterns look complete is by closing the sections tightly and hiding my loose ends securely.

Closing off rounds

When I am working from a magic circle, which is most of the time, I really focus in when I’m closing the shape. Here’s the reason. When I am expanding in the round I start with a magic circle of a certain number of stitches, then I increase and decrease as needed to make the three dimensional shape I require. But when I get down to that final round, technically on stitch counts alone the last reduction takes me to the same number of stitches I had on that starting magic circle.

What I therefore do to close it neatly is a single crochet for an additional round, then I swap my hook for my yarn needle* and weave in and out between the remaining stitches, gently pulling them tightly. Finally I hide the loose end of the yarn tail.

Securing and hiding loose ends

To keep loose ends from wiggling their way out of my toys, you might be surprised to hear that I don’t often tie knots in the yarn. Instead, I sew the long ends in and out through the nearest large section, which enables the fibers of the yarn to intertwine with the stuffing inside the toy*.

Amigurumi Faces

Faces make our crocheted toys come to life, and they are also a great way of making your copied pattern look unique for very low effort.

Highlighting the eyes

I love making a feature out of the eyes. To do this I usually use some hand sewing, working around the safety eye* with a contrasting color to make it stand out. If you’re crocheting a doll you can give it some eyeliner with sewing, or bring out those gorgeous lashes. The key is consistency of stitch sizes even with hand sewing, and to use a yarn that doesn’t blend into the background as it just won’t be noticed.

I also occasionally use the same colored yarn as the rest of the face to create eyelids, which can be achieved by stitching back and forth a couple of times over the top of the safety eye.

Creating mouths and noses

I don’t often give my patterns mouths, but my son really likes his toys to have a full face so I’m creating them more often lately.

For an open jaw on an animal you can make a whole separate piece of crochet to attach underneath as I have done with my crocodile. This has the benefit that you can add cute little teeth too. But for most of the designs I give a smile too, it will be hand sewn working back and forth few a handful of stitches.

Noses are a fun addition too, and you’ll find they are mostly created by sewing two little lines of stitches either side of the muzzle for animals.

You can also stitch on a magic circle in an alternate color to give a more rounded shape.

Safety eyes can also make awesome nostrils, and that’s what I used for my hippopotamus pattern last year.

Adding makeup

Real makeup can be used carefully to create cheeks or even faded laughter lines on the face of a crochet doll, but you must use a steady hand and start with a very little powder, working it into the fabric with the tip of a brush. I’m always terrified I am going to stain the whole thing!

Amigurumi Markings

Patterns are a big part of creating animals in amigurumi, and spots and stripes of varying types are definitely the most common markings we come across.

Spots

Technically you can create spots with color changes, but they are rarely perfectly round. The best ways I find to make flat spots are by sewing a star shape and connecting the points, or by closing a magic circle and then sewing that onto the toy.

Stripes

Stripes are a little easier to make in rounds, but recently i’ve been crocheting a new zebra pattern and I wasn’t happy with the positioning of the stripes using color changes. So I decided to have a go with surface crocheting, hand sewing and sewing on strips of crocheted material too. I’ll report back on which I settle on, but for now it’s looking likely that sewing chains in place is the best option for the natural look I am going for.

Crochet Stitch Locations

If you’ve been crocheting for a while, you’ll be familiar with the idea that not all stitches are made into the same place. The first incidence we all come across with this is the different between crocheting into a chain and then working into your first round of traditional stitches. But beyond that, you can also crocheting into the back loop, front loop or post only. And you can even crochet into the surface of a previously crocheted material!

Surface crochet for raised details

I use surface crochet techniques a lot in my patterns. I most frequently make lines of single crochets into the surface to define textures or patterns that are either impossible to make in line with a round, or that I want to be raised up above the rest of the material.

This technique helps me to define wrists, ankles, hooves, and most often I use it for edging ears. It’s a great way to define the shape as well as to add a contrasting color.

Back and front loop only

I frequently use back loop only, and occasionally front loop only. This is to give definition to the hands and feet of my amigurumi patterns. This gives a more defined and jarring change of shape, that works well for parts of the body that just don’t flow as gently in reality.

*The products linked in this pattern were carefully selected by Lucy Kate Crochet. If you decide to purchase using the links provided, we may earn a small commission on that sale. This is at no extra cost to you.

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