Learn To Crochet – Beginner’s Bunny Project
Phew! Way behind schedule as per usual but finally I am finished this bunny crochet tutorial! Sorry it took so long >_< Hopefully the wait was worth it and those who wanted to take part have had enough time to get some yarn and a crochet hook!
This tutorial is made up of both a video and the photos so you can pick and choose the way of learning that suits you the best or use both for supersized learning 😉 It is picture heavy, there are around 50 photos plus the 10min video so if you’re on dial up beware.
The finished project (with a silly drawn on face)….
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Pretty cute? Yes! And all you need to do is make 2 rectangles so nice and easy for a first project ^_^Now a couple of things to think about before you go ahead and start the tutorial: I am a knitter first and foremost, I have been knitting since I was 3yrs old but have only been crocheting for 4ish years so my technique is not perfect. I learnt via friends, books and videos and I am by no means the be-all-end-all crochet genius. In fact, I have been told that I crochet like a knitter XD If you are looking for perfect beginners technique then check out some of these links:
If you prefer my style of tutorial and are happy with my results then read on! |
What you need:
- Main colour yarn (mine is pink)
- Corresponding sized crochet hook (mine is 3.75mm)
- Tail yarn (mine is white)
- Needle and thread in the same colours as your yarn
- Scissors
- Something to stuff the bunny with, I’m using scrap fabric
- Patience <- very important
First here is the video I made, even if you don’t want to learn watch it anyway because James made me an awesome new introduction to match my new video set up. LOVE IT! . .
Ok so on to the photos.
Untangle the end of your yarn and make sure you have a decent amount unraveled to work with. A note on which yarn/crochet hook to choose, here I am using 8ply yarn and a 3.75mm hook. If you live overseas, here is a needle size conversion chart. You need a hook which is the right size for your yarn otherwise you will end up with big holes or a very tight stitch (like amigurumi animals) here is a chart to help you pick.
With that out of the way let’s get started.
To cast the first stitch on to your hook, start to tie the end of your yarn in a knot but don’t pull the tail through the hole. In the photo below you can see that the tail is underneath the loop of the knot. If you were to pull it tight, it would just all come loose rather than tying into a knot.
Poke your hook through and pick up the part of the tail which is inside the loop. Like this:
Grab both the very end of the yarn and the part still attached to the ball and pull them gently downwards.
They will form a kind of slipknot around the hook.
Pull the tail of the yarn to the left and the rest of it to the right to tighten the knot around the hook. That’s your first stitch!
From this point on you’ll have to excuse how I’m actually holding the hook, generally I hold the hook in my right hand but I was holding the camera so it was a bit hard to juggle XD
So holding your hook upwards you should have something like this…
Now to start off we will need to make a foundation chain which is the base row of stitches. The head needs to have 20 chains in the foundation row.
To make a stitch take the yarn (make sure it’s the part attached to the ball, not the tail or else you will run out very quickly!) and wrap it completely around the hook clockwise. See my awesome arrows below!
Point the hook to the left and gently move it down so the yarn you wrapped is caught under it.
Keep pulling down so the hook with the trapped yarn actually slides through the first stitch you had on there.
You can see how it’s being pulled here:
Now you’ve got a new stitch on your hook! 1 down, 19 to go 😀
So wrap the yarn around the hook again.
And pull down through the other stitch.
It’s quite quick to do once you get the hang of it.
When you have 20 chains done, add two more. So you should have done a total of 22 chains. The reason we are doing an extra 2 is because we will make them into a right angle (and an “L” shape”) to give us enough space to start the first real row.
Ok so lets start the 1st real row.
Skipping the 2 extra chains, push the hook through the next one.
Wrap your yarn around the hook.
Pull the wrapped yarn down and through the first loop on the hook.
Now you have this:
Wrap the yarn around again.
And pull that wrapped yarn through both of the loops on the hook
So now you should only have on loop left on the hook. One stitch DONE!
Now it’s really just a matter of rinse and repeat over and over again until you run out of chain to do it into. You should be able to do 20 of them, one for each chain.
Once you are finished the row, chain 2 extras, again this will give you enough room height-wise to start the next row.
Then begin again, skipping the two chain and pushing the hook through the next stitch.
You can see this is halfway through the second row.
And finished the second row.
So keep adding rows until you have enough! For the head you will need 28 rows.
Aaaaaand done! On the very last stitch you can cut the end of the yarn leaving a 5-10cm tail.
Use the hook and pull it completely through this time.
Pull tight and it forms a knot!
So the head piece is 20 chain and 28 rows. To be completely honest, it really doesn’t matter the exact number of rows or chain as long as you end up with a rectangle so if you have too many/few don’t stress about it.
Now you just need to repeat all of that and make the body! This time start with 28 chain and do 30 rows. Again the exact numbers don’t matter so much in this particular project as long as you have 1 bigger rectangle and one smaller for the head.
You should end up with something like this…
So let’s put the damn thing together! We’ll do the body first 😀
Take the body and fold all of the corners into points. I didn’t get any clear photos of this part so if you need more detail, check the video! Basically you get the middle of each side and push them into the middle so the corners become pointy legs.
Stitch up 3 of the legs and stuff it with fabric/stuffing/yarn/whatever. Stitch the last leg closed. Then you need to fold all of the legs forward and stitch them in place. You can see below where the stitching should be and how it forms the body.
I’m using black thread so you can see what I’m doing but obviously you should use a colour that matches your yarn so it can’t be seen!
See how the legs look from the side:
And the top! DONE!
Oooook almost finished! Pat on the back if you managed to make it this far!
Take the head piece and fold the bottom in half, stitch it shut. Once flattened out it should look like this…
Fold the little top edge over and stitch it to the seam you already made. Add some stuffing!
Now flip it over to the front and pleat the the points so they actually look like ears. Once you are happy with how the ears look, wrap some yarn around it very tightly and tie it off!
Something along these lines:
And that’s the head! Here’s the back:
And the front!
What you need to do next is stitch the bunny’s head to it’s body in the corresponding place.
So close to being finished! Now the last step is to make a little pompom for a tail. Wrap some white yarn around your fingers, tie the middle, cut the loops and stitch it on to the bunny’s butt XD
And there you go! Cute little bunny all finished, congratulations!
Such a cute little bunny!
If you want you could stitch on a cute face but I liked him plain so I just drew one on in Photoshop XD
Big congratulations if you actually read this far and even bigger congratulations if you actually gave this a go and made your own bunny! I would love to see if any of you actually did 😀
Now if you enjoyed that I’ll be doing the striped knitted scarf next… but I think I need a break first because this took so long to put together!
Hope you found it useful!
