How to Crochet Amigurumi | Crocheting

Watch more How to Crochet videos: http://www.howcast.com/videos/472358-How-to-Add-and-Drop-Stitches-CrochetingLearn how to crochet amigurumi, which is the Japanese art of crocheting animals or toys, from Lion Brand Yarn's Andrea Lemire in this Howcast video.Hey, I'm Andrea Lemire, the education coordinator here at the Lion Brand Yarn Studio. I'm going to show you some really cool techniques for beginning crochet, and hopefully, you'll have as much fun as I have with it. Okay, lets get started.So, I'm going to talk about how you crochet Amigurumi, which are the adorable stuffed animals. They are simply a combination of a lot of those basic crochet techniques. I'll show you on this little fish here the basic construction of how all these shapes are created. So, you're going to start with one of the beginning in the rounds method, I do recommend the one that starts with the chain-to that's in the crocheting in the round video, just because that makes a nice tight opening so when you're stuffing them you won't have stuffing spilling out of that area and then you're going to work in the rounds increasing out until that tube you're making is as wide as it needs to be. And here the pattern would specify how many rounds you're going to work for that. To make it into an actual tube shape, like in this fish body, that's when you stop increasing and you just start working in rounds until the tube is as long as you need it to be. At the opposite end, then you work decreasing rounds and to learn how to do that as well as the increasing you can check out the Increasing and Decreasing Video. And then once you're back down to a small opening again, that's when you fasten off. And what you want to do is stop almost two thirds to three quarters of the way through the tube that you're making and that's when you will stuff it. Fiberfill is a great stuffing to use for these because it soft and machine washable, so it's great if you're giving it to a baby as a toy.So, that's just one way to make a basic tube shape but all of these Amigurumi that you see are simply different combinations of tubes. So, different increasing and decreasing rounds to make all the shapes that fit together. Each one is stuffed and then they're sewn together into the animal shapes.Something else that you might want to keep in mind if you are putting eyes on an Amigurumi and you're not going to sew the eyes in and you're using these black eyes here, you want to make sure that you're getting safety eyes. And safety eyes look like this, they're in a package and they have a white backing which clips on, it locks in and you're going to put these in before you stuff that tube. And it's important to use safety eyes, in particular if you're giving the Amigurumi to a child or baby just because they won't pop out and so there is no danger of the child swallowing the eye. So that's definitely important to keep in mind based on who you're giving them to.So, simply all combinations of all those basic crochet stitches, most of them are done with a single crochet, so if that's all you know so far check out the Increasing and Decreasing video and you'd be making Amigurumis nonstop. For all these Amigurumi patterns in particular, you can go to Lionbrand.com under the pattern finder and the best way to search for them there is to actually search for the name of the animal you want to make and chances are you should find it there. So, as you can see, Amigurumi are simply a combination of very simple techniques. They're really fun to make, they make great gifts, and they're absolutely addictive.