Do you have a friend who can make any animal out of yarn? One who takes a ball of yarn, a hook, and some time and creates adorable creatures seemingly almost out of thin air? One thing for sure for people who haven’t made a ton of crochet ‘amigurumi’ animals before is you should alwasy start with a good project and an easy-to-follow pattern! So check this one out! You’ll be as delighted as me when I found out that Amigurum has an excellent free pattern for a crochet bear.
To make your own crocheted teddy, you’ll need to know the following stitches:
- Magic circle
- Chain (ch)
- Single crochet (sc)
- Increase (2 sc in next stitch)
- Decrease (sc 2 stitches together)
- Slip stitch (sl st)
- Finish Off (fo)
Almost all of these will be familiar to every crocheter, though the magic circle might need some explaining. There are dozens of great tutorial videos on YouTube if you need to figure it out before beginning this project. While there are no specifics as to materials needed apart from the type of yarn (the originator of the pattern suggests using something along the lines of Himalaya Dolphin Baby or YarnArt Dolce), this means that you can create a bear any size you want – just make sure that the crochet hook and the yarn are the correct size for each other. You don’t want stuffing to fall out of the bear, and you don’t want the stitches to be so tight that you can’t twist and turn.
You can experiment with different types of fancy yarn as well, if you want your bear ‘fur’ to look more natural. You can use plastic eyes and nose, or you can embroider, or you can use felt. The choice is up to you, so be creative and try out a variety of options to see what works best.
If you’d like to get a peek at the free pattern as well as some darling photos of the results, visit Amigurum. You may want to bookmark the site and come back for other free amigurumi patterns.
