How to Crochet a Bee: Beginner Amigurumi

Lay out a 7 mm crochet hook, super bulky blanket yarn in yellow, black, white, and a scrap of pink, two 18 mm safety eyes, polyester fiberfill, a yarn needle, scissors, and a stitch marker.

Start with yellow. Pinch the working yarn between your thumb and pointer finger, wrap it around your pointer and middle finger to form an x, and hold the x in place with your ring finger. Insert the hook under the x, turn it 180 degrees, grab the lower strand, pull it under the x. Turn the hook again, go over the x, grab the lower strand and pull it through the loop on the hook. That's your magic circle. Work 7 single crochets into the ring, then pull the tail to cinch it closed.

Place a stitch marker in the last stitch so you know where round 1 ended. For round 2, work an increase (two single crochets) in every single stitch. That doubles the count from 7 to 14.

For round 3, alternate one single crochet and one increase, repeating seven times around. You'll end with 21 stitches. Round 4 is one plain single crochet in every stitch - no increases, no decreases - which keeps the count at 21 and gives the bee its rounded base shape.

For a seamless color change, start in the stitch just before where you want black to appear. Pull the loop off the hook, undo half of that last yellow single crochet so only two loops are on the hook, and reinsert the hook. Now finish that stitch with the black yarn pulled through the two yellow loops.

Tie the black yarn to the working yellow yarn three times like the start of a shoelace, then trim the excess yellow. Move into the first stitch of the new round, but instead of a single crochet do a slip stitch followed by a chain. That slip-stitch-and-chain counts as the first single crochet of the round and hides the color jog. Continue around with one single crochet in each stitch.

Repeat the color change every round to build the bee's signature stripes. The pattern is one round black, one round yellow, one round black, one round yellow, one round black - five total stripes once round 5 through 10 are finished.

Every time you switch colors, skip that first stitch of the new round (the leftover stitch from the slip-stitch chain), then do another slip stitch and chain as your first single crochet of the new color. After the final black stripe, work one full yellow round with no color change to round off the top.

Set the crochet aside and grab the two 18 mm safety eyes. Place the first eye between rounds 2 and 3 on the front of the bee (the part of the body you want to be the face - usually placed opposite the color-change seam). Eyeball the second eye directly across so the spacing looks even, then push both backings on firmly from inside.

Cut a short piece of pink yarn, thread it onto a yarn needle, and sew a small horizontal blush stitch just below each eye, going from inside the body outward and back. Tie off the pink yarn on the inside.

Stuff the bee body with polyester fiberfill in small pinches rather than one big handful. Smaller pinches give a smoother shape and help you spot any thin spots that need more filling.

Once stuffed, work the final round: seven invisible decreases all the way around (one decrease combines two stitches, so seven decreases reduce 14 stitches down to 7). For an invisible decrease, insert the hook through the front loop only of the next two stitches, then yarn over and pull through all three loops. Fasten off, leave a long tail, and thread the tail through the front loops of those seven stitches. Pull tight to cinch the hole closed and weave the tail in.

For each wing, start with a magic ring in white yarn and work 6 single crochets into it. Pull the tail to close. Round 2: increase in every stitch for a total of 12 single crochets. Fasten off, leaving a 12 to 18 inch tail for sewing. Make a second wing the same way.

Position the wings on the back of the bee over the color-change seam (this hides any unevenness from the stripe joins). Use the long tail to whip-stitch each wing along one straight edge so the two halves meet in the center like a butterfly. Knot the tail securely inside the body, thread the needle through the bee a few times to bury the knot, then trim.