How to Crochet a Mini Hedgehog

Begin the body in your face color, usually cream or tan. Make a magic ring by wrapping the yarn around two fingers, then pull a loop through and work three single crochet into the ring.

Give the tail a firm tug to draw the center closed. That leaves you with a tight little circle and no hole in the middle, which is exactly what you want for a stuffed shape. Everything else builds out from this starting round.

Keep working in a spiral, adding stitches on each round so the ball grows evenly. The increases fall in a steady pattern, a few single crochet, then an increase, and repeat, so the sides curve out into a smooth egg shape.

Drop a stitch marker into the first stitch of every round. Amigurumi has no obvious seam, and that marker is the only way to know where one round ends and the next begins.

When the body is as wide as you want, work several rounds into the back loops only. Slide your hook under just the back loop of each stitch instead of both loops as you go around.

Working this way leaves a small ridge and pulls the fabric inward, which flattens the underside and starts to taper the front into the pointed hedgehog snout. It is a small change in where you insert the hook that makes a big difference in the shape.

Push in the polyester fiberfill before the opening gets too small to work with. Add it in small pinches and press it around the edges so the body stays firm and round, not lumpy on one side.

With the stuffing in, decrease around to draw the top closed. Once only a few stitches remain, cut the yarn, thread the tail through them, and pull tight to cinch the hole shut so no filling shows.

Now switch to your spine color and make the coat of spikes. Each spine is one small chain followed by a two double-crochet cluster, written in the pattern as 2DC-CL. You yarn over, pull up loops, then draw them all together into one raised bump.

Repeat that cluster across the round and into the rounds above, and the surface fills in with dozens of little points. Keep them close together so the back reads as a dense, prickly coat rather than a few scattered bobbles.

Set the spiny cap over the cream body so it covers the back and sits just behind the snout. Line up the edges, then stitch it down all the way around with your yarn needle so it stays put and does not shift.

Now give it a face. Push a safety eye into place on each side of the snout and lock the washers on the inside before the opening closes, then stitch or attach a small dark nose right at the pointed tip.

Give your hedgehog a set of tiny feet. Chain three, then slip stitch back into the next chain to make a short little stub, and attach one under each side of the body so it can sit flat.

Do the same for the other leg, then weave every loose yarn end back into the body with your needle so nothing dangles. Trim the tails close, and your mini hedgehog is ready to display or gift.