Crocheted Eyes for Amigurumi

I love seeing the different ways crocheters add facial features to my patterns.  Different interpretations of eyes, noses, and mouths can give each creation such original expressions!

Adding eyes to amigurumis can add a lot of personality to a project.  For the most part, many people – myself included – like to use safety eyes.  But sometimes safety eyes aren’t easy to find or they’re a little more costly than you might like.  Or maybe you’re just unsure of how they will hold up in a toy given to a baby or small child.  A great alternative to using safety eyes is to crochet your own!  My friend, Linda, crochets all of the eyes for her creations, and she helped me create the following tutorial for you.

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When making eyes for a “normal” sized amigurumi (not one of patterns from my Big Hugs or Little Explorers collections), you will use black yarn (or your preferred color) yarn and a smaller hook.  Linda uses double knitting or 4-ply yarn (in the US, DK weight yarn is a perfect substitute) and either a 2.5mm or 3mm hook (a C hook will do).  Choose a yarn that isn’t too fluffy – cotton seems to work quite well.

Work either 6sc or 8hdc into a magic circle.  Try these in various combinations to give you different size eyes. Join with a slip st or an invisible join (cut your yarn leaving a length for sewing it to your project).

Take some white crochet thread (or non-fluffy thin white yarn) and using a yarn needle, bring the needle up through the magic circle and round the outside of your black crocheted circle (where your join was made) and push your needle back up through the magic circle again.  Do this 4 or 5 times. Tie the white ends together on the underside of the eye to keep the white stitches tight.  This is probably the trickiest bit.

Then take your black yarn again and work a few stitches over the end of your white stitches so that you get a complete black border. This method should give you a neat white highlight, and you might be more likely to get two eyes that looked the same than when just embroidered with white yarn!

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Sew the eyes on after stuffing the head using the ends of the white thread to secure the eye in the correct place and then stitch round the outside using the remaining black yarn.  You can always sew a few extra stitches round the outside if the eye doesn’t look quite round or you decide it needs to be a little bigger.  You can also add eye lashes, like in this Annie the Angel.

If you want to add tension to the eyes, just take some matching black yarn through the head & up through the magic circle and down within the eye.  Then take the yarn back through the head and come out at the same point you started from.  Tie the ends together in a knot and use a yarn needle to thread the ends back into the stuffing of the head.