Basic Stitches for Amigurumi

I would bet that every crocheter out there will tell you that the first stitch they were taught when learning crochet was the chain stitch. While the chain might not be used excessively in all amigurumi projects, the repetitiveness of this stitch will help you get comfortable with working with your yarn and hook.

The knot used in order to secure your yarn to your hook is called a slip knot. A chain is made of a series of loops, and can be made to be as long or as short as you’d like. Let’s learn them both here:

When learning how to crochet amigurumi, it is very likely that most, if not all of your entire crochet project will be made up of the single crochet stitch. When learning crochet in general, in addition to how to crochet amigurumi, this stitch is one of the easiest stitches to learn, and it can create so many fun and interesting pieces.

In this next tutorial, we will learn how to make the single crochet stitch.

The magic ring, also known as the magic circle, is typically the start of every amigurumi pattern. The magic ring is what you start with to create the round spherical shapes that amigurumi is known to use.

While amigurumi can certainly be created with flat pieces that are perhaps joined and/or folded together to make 3D shapes, those 3D figures are typically worked up that way.

Let’s learn more about the magic ring and why it is so important for amigurumi:

After learning the single crochet stitch, you might be wondering how on Earth that little stitch can create so many different shapes. The answer is simple: increases and decreases! Increases and decreases are so important when learning how to crochet amigurumi, as these stitches create the shaping of your project.

You might see a single crochet increase written as inc, INC, or 2 SC. A decrease can be made a few different ways, and can be written as dec, DEC, or SC2tog. Let’s learn how to create the single crochet increase and decrease:

The invisible decrease is a game changer when learning how to crochet amigurumi! The invisible decrease is most commonly used in amigurumi projects. It serves the same purpose as a standard decrease, but gives a much cleaner appearance. We’ll learn the invisible decrease in this next tutorial:

The slip stitch can be used for a variety of reasons, but when learning how to crochet amigurumi, it is often used for finishing off a row, adding details, or joining pieces together.

Like the slip knot and chain, it isn’t used very often, but it is still a very important part of the fundamentals of learning crochet.