This cute little bird is the perfect project to give to someone as a last-minute gift, or just to make for yourself when you have an hour and some scrap yarn to spare. It’s also the perfect project to make your first amigurumi, as the body is simply a tube with some increases and decreases.
Tools and Materials
All the yarn you’ll need is either one mini skein or 10-15 grams of scrap yarn and a few grams of a contrasting-coloured yarn. Additional materials for the bird are around 5 grams of stuffing and a pair of safety eyes, I used 10mm ones. Tip: If you don’t have stuffing, you can also collect scrap yarn from other projects that’s not enough to use for projects and repurpose that as stuffing.
When it comes to crochet hooks, I used a 3.5 mm for the most part and a 3.0mm one for the ‘beak’ of the bird (I find this makes it look neater, but you can also use the same hook for everything). Generally, I recommend using a hook that’s 0.5mm (and 1.0mm) smaller than recommended for the yarn. In addition, you’ll need a pair of scissors or yarn cutter, a tapestry needle and optionally some fabric glue.
Crocheting the body
Start out by making a magic ring using the smaller one of the hooks, then pull up a loop and chain one. To create the magic ring, wind the yarn around your index finger twice, with the tail end facing the palm of your hand. Then pull the loop that's closer to your palm over the front (closer to your fingertip) loop; afterwards, pull the now back loop again over the front loop, this time lifting it off your finger. Now pull the knot closed; you can now crochet into the magic loop and afterwards close it by pulling on the tail.
Crochet two SC into the ring and afterwards pull on the tail to close the ring. For the next round, make one SC into each V, so that you’ll again have two stitches total. This will be the beak of your bird.
To start the head, increase by crocheting two into each stitch, so that you’ll now have a total of four stitches. I personally crochet in a spiral, so I don’t slip stitch and chain at the end of a round, but you could also do it that way if you prefer. After this, switch to the larger crochet hook and make another round of one SC into each stitch. For the next seven rounds, follow the instructions of the chart, keep increasing by making two SCs into one stitch wherever needed. Also note that I space out the increases evenly throughout the round; so when increasing from eight to twelve stitches, I add two SC into one for every other stitch in the round.
When it comes to the decreases, I recommend doing invisible decreases - as with this bird you crochet ‘from the inside’, meaning the inside is the part of the crochet fabric that’s facing you while working on it, these are done by inserting your hook into the back (outside facing) loops of the next two stitches, pulling the yarn through both of those, and then pulling the yarn through both loops on your hook to make a single crochet.
After you’ve completed a total of eleven rounds, meaning the next round would be to increase to 16 SCs, it’s first time to add the eyes. Hold the bird in a way that the beginning/end of each round, so where the live loop is, is on the bottom; this way the increases/decreases won’t be visible from looking at the top of the bird.
I recommend first placing both eyes by pushing them through a hole in your crocheting where you think they fit best before you’ll secure them in place with the washer. Mine are placed in round eight and are spaced five stitches apart (counted on top of the head). After securing the eyes, I also recommend you start to add some stuffing into the head already.
In order to create the belly shape, for the next three rounds until you reach a total of 24 stitches, the increases are not spaced evenly but are done only on the bottom. This means for each increase round, crochet two SC into one stitch for the first two and last two stitches of each round.
The rest of the body is very simple, keep following the chart and decreasing where needed. After every few rows add a bit more stuffing; once the rows get smaller towards the tail, you can use a pencil or the back end of your crochet hook to get the stuffing in. Once you crocheted all rounds and the stuffing is in, use slip stitches to close the tail. For this, make one or two more SC if needed to ensure your loop is on the right or left side of the tail and then insert your hook into both loops of both the previous and the next stitch in the round and pull the yarn through all loops to create a slip stitch. Do this two more times and your tail should now be closed, and the body of your bird is finished!
When weaving in the ends, I like weaving the end on the back of the bird along the top of the tail, this way you can make the tail stand up a little by pulling on the end; once I am happy with that shape I weave in the end in another direction for a few more stitches. For the end on the beak, I just weave it in for a few stitches along the bottom of the head. To make the ends disappear, I insert the needle through the inside of the bird, cut the end pretty short, and then pull the needle out on the other side.
Crocheting the wings
Moving onto the wings, it’s quite straight forward. Make a slipknot, chain two and then make two SC into the slipknot. Chain one, turn your work and work one SC into each stitch. Every other row will be an increase row, so for the next row chain one and turn your work, and then SC into the first stitch and work two SC into the next stitch. Keep repeating this and increasing by one stitch in every other row (in the following rows I do the increase in the stitch that’s in the middle of the row) until your wing is long enough or until you’ve done a total of ten rows.
To create the rounded end of the wing, skip the first and second-to-last stitch of the next row so that you’ll have only three stitches. Then turn your work one more time and SC only into the last stitch of the next row, skipping the first two stitches. Then chain one, cut your yarn and pull it through the loop to close the live loop. Now repeat the same steps for the second wing. Weave in either only one end each or both, depending on how you want to attach them to the body of the bird (read the next paragraph for both options).
Attaching the wings
When it comes to attaching the wings to the body of the bird, you have two options - you can either use the tail on the wide side of the wing to sew it onto the body of the bird with a few stitches, or you can do it the ‘improper’ way and glue them on. I find it more convenient to glue them (I’m lazy and I really don’t like sewing), I use Gütermann Fabric Glue and they stay on very well, I never had any issues with the wings coming off, just press them on for 15-30 seconds after attaching to make sure they stay in place.
And that’s all, you have created a cute bird that can be anything from a cute display piece to serving as a small personal gift to give to someone to let them know that they have a little companion with them who’s watching out for them