What is a plushie, why do people want them? Many people love plushies but not everybody has a plushie that is their own or a specific character or animal that they want. With crochet you can make something called an amigurumi, a crocheted plushie, this amigurumi can be anything you want. That is why my blog is going to teach you the basics in crochet.
What do I need to crochet? Crochet looks really difficult but it is really easy once you start to get the hang of it. Before teaching you the basics of crochet I am going to tell you what materials you are going to need for different kinds of projects.
There are many different materials when it comes to crocheting different things. For example there are different types of yarn, like acrylic, and polyester. There are also different yarn sizes so you can determine how big you want your project to be. There are different sized crochet hooks, which is the tool used to crochet, that match up with the different yarn sizes. There are also different crochet tools used for different things. For example say you are just crocheting a blanket you would just need yarn and a crochet hook, but if crocheting a amigurumi. A crocheted plushie, you need a stitch marker so you can keep track of your stitches, you would also need a darning needle to close off your stitches, and plush to make it a plushie. As I mentioned this there are different types of yarn, the main two are acrylic, and polyester. They are both very different and are used for different things. For example when making plushies you would want to use polyester as it is soft and bigger then acrylic, which is why another name for it is chunky yarn. Acrylic is smaller and rough, it is mostly used for things like clothes or accessories. Acrylic yarn is also better for details. You can use both types in one project, like if you wanted a more detailed plush you could use polyester for the outside of the plushie and acrylic for its clothes, hair, or eyes.
To start any project there is the first step, like a magic circle or a slipknot. A slipknot is used for most crochet projects as it is tying the yarn itself to make a circle.It looks like a lasso, the circle you would then crochet in, making stitches. The magic circle is used for anything round, mostly plushies. To make a magic circle you need to first understand what a stitch is. A stitch is taking your slipknot and pulling more yarn into the hole, this is called a chain, then you can pull more yarn into that chain making a single crochet. A single crochet is a type of stitch and there are many different kinds, but we are only going to talk about a single crochet. Once making a chain by making a single crochet into the bottom chain you can pull the chain together to make a magic circle. Once you have these two things you can go on to make different stitches which can make an amigurumi. You can even use just single crochets to make something simple like a blanket. That is all the basics you need to know to get started on your first crochet project
Photo Credits: Giulia Bertelli
Juan (Julian) Mendez-Beacon-DMSF Class of 2028