How to Crochet an Octopus - 7-Step Amigurumi Tutorial

Lay out the basics: worsted-weight yarn, a 3.5 mm crochet hook, a small ball of fiberfill, two safety eyes, a yarn needle, and a stitch marker. Make a slip knot on the hook and chain 2.

In the second chain from the hook - the one closest to the slip knot, not the loop on your hook itself - work 6 single crochets. They all go into that same chain, so the work feels crowded for the first few stitches. That's normal; the chain stretches to fit.

This is the tip of the octopus head. By the end of round 1 you'll have a tight little ring of 6 stitches.

Round 2 is a pure increase round. Work 2 single crochets in each of the 6 stitches around, giving you 12 stitches total. You're doubling the count, which is what opens the ring into a small bowl shape.

Add your stitch marker into the last stitch of the round. From here on, every time you return to that marked stitch you've completed another round. Move the marker up as you go.

Three more increase rounds shape the head. Each round follows a pattern of single crochets followed by an increase, but the spacing widens as the head grows.

Round 3: single crochet 1, then increase. Repeat that around. Round 4: single crochet 1, single crochet 1, then increase. Round 5: single crochet 1, increase, single crochet 1 (the increase moves to keep the shape symmetric).

By the end of round 5 you'll have 24 stitches and a small bowl about the size of a quarter coin.

Now the increases pause. Work 4 rounds of plain single crochet with no increases and no decreases - just one single crochet in each stitch all the way around. The body grows taller without getting wider.

This is where the shape becomes recognizable as an octopus head: a round dome about an inch tall. Keep moving the stitch marker up as you finish each round, and jot a tally mark on a sticky note if you tend to lose count.

Time to narrow the body and add a face. The decrease round goes: single crochet 2 together (a decrease that combines two stitches into one), then single crochet 1, all the way around.

Before you continue closing the body, attach the safety eyes. Pick the spot you want them - usually about two-thirds of the way up the body, two stitches apart - and push each eye post through the fabric from the outside. Snap the locking washer onto the post from the inside. Once that washer clicks, the eye is permanent.

Slip stitch, chain 1, then work the next round in the back loops only. That means the hook goes under just the back half of each stitch instead of both halves. The front loops are left behind as a ridge - that ridge is where the legs will attach later.

Continue the back-loop round with single crochet, decrease, single crochet, around. Then stuff the body firmly with fiberfill before the hole gets too small. Finish with one final round of single crochet 2 together all the way around, then cut the yarn leaving a tail. Thread the tail through the remaining stitches with the yarn needle and pull tight to cinch the hole closed.

Cut a fresh strand of yarn. Slide your hook under one of the front-loop ridges you left behind in step 6 - pick any one, the spacing works out. Pull a loop through and chain 1 to anchor.

In each of the 8 ridge loops around, work 5 half double crochets. A half double crochet is one yarn-over before inserting the hook, then yarn-over and pull through all three loops on the hook. Working 5 of them into a single stitch forces the fabric to coil, which is what makes each leg curl into a spiral.

Slip stitch between each cluster of 5 to anchor the next leg. After all 8 legs are done, cut the yarn and weave the tail through the body with the yarn needle. Your octopus is finished.