Your Starter Guide to Making Cute Crochet Creatures

"Amigurumi" might sound like a fancy word, but it is actually a Japanese term that essentially means "crocheted or knitted stuffed toy". If you've ever seen a crocheted stuffed animal and thought "I wonder if I could make that", the answer is absolutely 100% yes! 

Unlike garments that require sizing, amigurumi is actually one of the most beginner-friendly ways to start crochet. It is mostly done using just one stitch, round and round in a spiral. Let's dive into what you'll need to start your own amigurumi with an essential toolkit, and a basic crash course. 

Part 1: The Essential Toolkit

You don't need every crafting gadget under the sun to start. But you should start off with these 5 things. 

1. The Right Yarn

For beginners, we recommend a Cotton or Acrylic yarn. It's easy to see your stitches, and you can typically undo and reuse the same yarn without it falling apart (like chenille yarn for example). 

2. A Hook

Check the label on your yarn - most acrylic yarn specifies a 4.0mm hook. Ignore that size. For amigurumi, you'll want to use a hook that is a couple sizes smaller than what the yarn label recommends.

My personal preference is a 3.5mm hook. It allows me to create tight stitches, but I can still easily grab the yarn with the hook without breaking the yarn strand, which might happen if you go with a hook that is too small. 

3. Stitch Markers

I highly recommend you buy some stitch markers as they're cheap and usually come with a lot of them. Amigurumi is most frequently worked in a continuous spiral, not in rows like clothing might be. Because of that, it's nearly impossible to keep track of where you started or ended your row. 

They can also be helpful to replace your hook if you need to pause your project until later. You can simply click your stitch marker into the loop that's currently on your hook, and you're free to remove your hook without any stitches becoming undone.

If you're unable to buy them for whatever reason, you can also use a scrap piece of yarn, or a safety pin (stay away from paperclips). 

4. Safety Eyes & Stuffing

• Polyster Fiberfill: This is the fluffy white cloud stuffing found in craft stores.

• Safety Eyes: These are the black plastic snap-in eyes that give amigurumi their cute personality. You can get a specific tool that can help you snap the backings into place, since it can be difficult without, but for a beginner this isn't a necessity until you know you want to crochet more.

  • Important Note! If you are crocheting something for a baby or a very young child, do not use safety eyes as they may come loose and the child can easily swallow them. Embroider eyes on instead with black yarn.

5. A Yarn Needle

You will need a dull, wide-eyed needle to sew limbs on and weave in your ends easily. A standard sewing needle is too small for standard yarn to get through the eye.

Part 2: The 4 Stitches You Need to Know

Believe it or not, 90% of amigurumi is made using just these four techniques.

1. The Magic Ring

Every 3D sphere or other round shape starts here. Instead of a chain, you crochet into an adjustable loop that pulls tight to close the hole at the top of the head.

Read our full guide on the Magic Ring here!

2. Single Crochet (sc)

This is the bread and butter of amigurumi. It is a short, dense stitch that creates a sturdy fabric. 

3. The Increase (inc)

You can increase the size of your round by adding stitches using a technique called an "increase". An increase is very simple, it's two single crochet stitches into the same hole. 

4. The Invisible Decrease (inv dec)

The opposite of an increase - decreasing the size of your round (closing up your sphere). The "Invisible Decrease" is a special technique that merges two stitches together without leaving a gap.

Reading the Code

Patterns look like alien code at first, but they are simple formulas. Let's look at a few pattern lines and break them down. 

R1: sc6 in MR (6)
R2: inc6 (12)
R3: (sc, inc)6 (18)
R4: (sc2, inc) 6 (24)

Right at the start, we see "R1". This just specifies what round number you are on. In this brief example, we have rounds 1 to 4. 

The next part, we have "sc6 in MR". This is what stitches you'll be doing in the first round. As we learned, "sc" stands for "single crochet", and right beside the "sc" is a 6! So we'll create 6 single crochets for round 1. But wait! It also says "in MR". If you're unsure how to make a magic ring, check out our magic ring article which will teach you how to do a magic ring, and the sc's in it!

Lastly on the first line we have "(6)". The number in brackets shows how many stitches you should have at the end of that round. This can be useful because if you ever lose track of where you're at and need to count stitches, if you count less than the number in brackets you know that you've done too few stitches (or if you count more you've done too many!).

Let's look at the rest of the lines really quickly. 

"R2: inc6 (12)" means for round 2, we will be doing 6 increase stitches and end up with a total of 12 stitches. If you're curious as to why the final number of stitches is 12, remember that for each increase, the final stitch count goes up by 1. Since we had 6 stitches from round 1, and we have 6 increase stitches, 6+6=12.

"R3: (sc, inc)6 (18)" means that for round 3, we will repeat the stitches in the brackets 6 times, and end up with a total of 18 stitches. We will repeat "single crochet, increase" 6 total times. The final stitch count will be 18 because 12(last round total)+6 (the number of increases this round)=18.

"R4: (sc2, inc)6 (24)" means that for round 4, we will repeat "single crochet, single crochet, increase" 6 times, and end up with a total of 24 stitches. 

Ready to Start?

My final advice for starting is to just pick up a hook and get started. You will make mistakes, and that is totally normal! Look up stitches if you ever get confused about which stitch is what. You'll get better the more you crochet, so it's no big deal if your first sphere looks a bit lumpy (it's almost like a rite of passage for beginner fiber artists!).

And if you decide you’d rather leave the hand-cramping work to the professionals? You can always adopt a finished friend from the Cozy Stitches Guild shop!