Adding Character to your Amigurumi Eyes

Eyes tutorial by The Perfect Knot

About a week or two ago I posted this picture of this little elephant for a project I was working on.
The response to his eyes & facial expression was overwhelming & I had people asking for a tutorial on how to do the eyes.

So I set out to work in trying to explain what I did. The easiest way for me to tell you is to "show you", so I have created a detailed photo tutorial for you to follow along with.

One of the easiest ways to add character to your Amigurumi, appliques or even your character type hats is to create a great expression and that generally starts with the eyes. If you can convey an emotion or expression through the eyes of your piece you will add a lot of character to your project.

So today we're going to create these whimsical looking happy eyes.

You will need to know basic embroidery skills and you will need either black & white yarn, embroidery floss or thread & a tapestry or sewing needle. I used yarn for the tutorial & a large eye tapestry needle.

Okay, let's get started!

One of the things you will want to do is to plot out on your piece where you want the placement of your eyes to go. Remember placing them too high or too low on your face will make them look awkward & not give you the intended expression you want. So what I usually do is to take a tape measure & space them evenly within the head of my piece closer to the top of the project where most people would have their eyes.
Leave space below for a nose & mouth as you will want to generally add those too.

So next you need to decide on the shape of your eyes. In this case I went with an Oval shape. I would recommend you actually practice drawing this out on a piece of paper or other fabric before you apply it to your finished project. After all you don't want to have to cut & remove stitches from your actual piece if you don't like it. ;)

Decide on the shape of the eyes you want to help
convey your expression

Next you are going to create sort of any imaginary line where you want your black part and your white part to stop. In most cases you want a tiny bit more black or colored part more than you would the white part, so I map my eyes so that the line for the colored iris would hit just above the center of the eye giving me more color that white.

Map the two color parts of your eye so that you have slightly more Iris
than White.

Fill in the colored area at the bottom to give yourself an idea of where
your colored part will go.

So once you have your eye shape mapped out you will want to fill in where you want the black & white parts to go just so you can have an idea of what it will look like.












Now the next thing that you will want to do to give your eyes a little life & light to them is to decide on placement of a catch light. Real eyes reflect light so you can see where the light is coming from. If you add a small catch light to your eyes it will give them a little more life & depth & create a more realistic expression.
So the way you do this is to decide where your light source would be in your project & to place the catch lights in the same position of each eye so it looks like you have a single light source hitting the eye. Just like if you were outside & the sun hit the eyes you would get this little sparkle in your eyes.

Choose your light source direction and choose placement
of the Catch Lights to give added depth an expression to
your eyes

So in my case I decided that the light source would be above my little character on the right above him. So the catch lights would both go on the right side of his eyes kind of high up in the iris.

You will want to make your catch lights symmetrical in both the size & placement. You do not want to put one on one side & then the other on the opposite side or your character will look cross-eyed. You also do not want to put them dead center of the eye or your eyes will look blank and like little targets. Remember real eyes are curved in shape and light will bend around the curve of the eye.


Once you have your catch lights placed the next thing you will want to do is decide on the eyebrows of your character. If his eyebrows are up at an angle slightly or curved you will have a more realistic or happy expression & if they are straight across or coming down at an angle it can look like his brow is furrowed or he is angry.
For this tutorial I went with the happy whimsical expression so I angled his eyebrows up just slightly.

Choosing the angle of your eyebrows will determine
if your character is happy, excited, angry or sad

Okay so now that you have the idea of how you want your character's face to look and the expression in the eyes lets put all of that into practice and apply the eyes to the face.

Staring out with the black yarn and working from the bottom of the eye up, you are going to insert the needle from the back of the piece to the front horizontally to create a small horizontal stitch for the bottom of the eye. Usually going over about 1 stitches width in single crochet is enough.
Insert your needle back into the fabric & wrap to the back of your piece.

It is important not to pull your stitches too tightly or you will distort your eye.

For your next stitch you will come back up just a tiny bit over from the first stitch & then back down just a tiny bit over on the opposite side.
You will be creating a series of graduated stitches to form the shape of the oval of the eye.

Make your first 3 or 4 stitches graduated so that the bottom of the eye widens up to the point you want it to go. Then when you get the width you want, you will stop widening your stitches & work your Iris so that your stitches are the same size until you reach the center of the eye.

After about 5 or 6 stitches you should start to see the bottom of your eye taking shape.

Once you get to your desired height & width of the bottom of the eye, then you will remove the needle from the black yarn (don't cut the yarn though, you will need it later) & attach your white yarn to start forming the top of your eye.

You will now attach the white yarn to the needle & working from the back of the piece to the front, insert your needle just above the place where your last black stitch came out.
Take the needle across to the opposite side of the eye at the same width as the last black stitch & insert your needle from the front to the back & wrap the yarn back around.

You are going to be creating another series of graduated stitches with the white yarn but in reverse of what you did before. Your stitches will be getting smaller as you work up instead of bigger like they did when you were doing the black part. This will create the gradual oval shape you want for the eyes.

Keep your stitches the same width as the black stitches for about 3 or 4 stitches before you begin making your stitches smaller/shorter.

Once you get to your desired height on the eye you will begin making your stitches slightly shorter to create the curve of the oval shape for the eye.

Once you finish the shape of the eye you want, you are going to add your catch lights. Working UNDER the stitches in the back, you are going to weave your needle through the yarn at the back of the piece & exit the needle into the black part of the Iris on the front of your piece. Remember where you decided to place the catch lights for your light source & exit your needle at that approximate position. In my case this was to the right side of my black part & higher up in the eye.

You will come up over the top of one strand of the black yarn and insert your needle back down into the fabric. Don't pull too tightly or you will bury the yarn into the other strands of the darker yarn.

At this point you are finished working with the white yarn & you can fasten it off securely by weaving in the yarn to the back of your eye.

Now you are going to Reattach the black yarn from where you made the Iris. (You can also do this part with a colored yarn if you like to add some color to your eye.) Once again working from the back to the front, insert your needle at the dividing line of the eye where the white & black meet. Bring the needle up through the fabric and take your yarn across to the opposite side of the eye & enter the fabric from the front to the back. This stitch will help to hide the dividing line of the eye & even it up.

Now you are going to make the eyebrows. You will insert your needle about one row above the corner of the eye from the back to the front of your piece and working at an angle you will insert your needle back into the fabric from the front to the back. Usually about one or two stitches is sufficient for the length of your stitch.

You can now fasten off and secure your black yarn at the back of your piece by weaving in your ends.

To make your second eye you will start at the bottom of your first eye and count over the even number of stitches you selected for your placement of the eyes. In my case it was starting 4 stitches over from the 1st eye.

You will want to start your second eye on the same row as you did your first eye, so line up the bottom of the first eye with your tape measure or ruler and then count over from there.

Insert the needle from back to front & repeat as before working graduated shorter stitches to larger stitches, and then the same sized stitches until you build up your Iris to be the same size as your other eye.

Once you finish with the Iris, again, do not cut the yarn as you will need it for your center stitch later, and reattach the white yarn to build up the white of the eye.

One you complete the second white part of the eye, you will again add your catch light to the eye. Weave your needle UNDER the yarn to the back and exit the needle again to the right side higher in the black part for the second catch light. Come down over only one strand of the yarn and insert the needle back into the piece from the front to the back.

Fasten off the white yarn & reattach the black yarn to come back across for your dividing line stitch to even up the two parts of the eye.

Next you will make the second eyebrow. With the black yarn, exit the fabric from the back to the front about one row up from the corner of the eye at an angle to make the second stitch for the eyebrow.
Insert needle back into fabric from front to back. Again, one to two stitches is more than enough for the eyebrow's length.

Fasten off the black yarn & weave in your ends to the back of the piece.

After finishing both eyes your piece should look something like this.













Now to finish your expression you can add your smile or mouth of choice and you are all finished.

Reattach the black yarn lower on the face maybe 2 or 3 rows below the eyes to create the smile or mouth.
Work from the back to the front of the piece to create the mouth.
I gave my little character a cute little upturned smile using 2 angled long stitches and two shorter ones for the corners of the mouth.







Once you have created the expression you want, secure your yarn to the back of your piece & weave in your ends. Ta-Da! You're finished and now you have a cute little character face with lots of personality!

I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial and that you will find it useful in your future projects. Thanks for stopping by The Perfect Knot Crochet and More!

Have a great day & God Bless!

Happy Stitching!

Michelle K
The Perfect Knot

Lucky Shamrocks Crochet Applique Pattern By The Perfect Knot

Lucky Shamrocks Applique by The Perfect Knot

It’s your Lucky Day!

These cute little shamrocks can be made using ANY thread or yarn & ANY hook size!

Perfect for embellishing your St. Patrick’s Day projects or just for whenever you need a little extra Luck in your day!

You can use them as appliques, for hair accessories, pins, brooches, or anything you can think of! They are cute, fun, FAST & easy & you can make on in about 5-10 minutes!

Share the luck & the love & enjoy this free pattern!

Thank you for stopping by The Perfect Knot Crochet & More!

Michelle K 
The Perfect Knot

Lucky Shamrocks

This is an intermediate level pattern written in US Crochet Terms.

This pattern can be worked with any hook size, yarn or thread.

Materials Needed:

Crochet Hook

Yarn or Thread

Tapestry Needle

Scissors

Stitch Legend:

Mgc Rng – Magic Ring

Ch – Chain

Sl St – Slip Stitch

Trbl – Treble Crochet

DC – Double Crochet

SC – Single Crochet

* – Repeat instructions between *’s

Three and Four Leaf Shamrocks

Shamrocks made with different size threads & yarns
& various hooks

SHAMROCK

Begin with a Mgc Rng & working into the ring, *[Ch 4 (counts as 1^st Trbl), 2 Trbl, 1 DC, 2 Trbl, Ch 4, Sl St back into the Ring], *Repeat twice for a 3 leaf Shamrock & 3 times for a 4 leaf Shamrock, after last Sl St, pull the yarn tail to close but do not close it all the way, leave a little room to work back into the ring, Ch 7, SC into the 2^nd Ch from the hook & into each remaining Ch (6 SC), Sl St back into ring, pull yarn tail closed, Ch 1 & fasten off.

Using the tapestry needle weave in all your ends & clip excess yarn.

© Copyright Michelle R. Kovach/The Perfect Knot 2012 - 2014. All rights reserved. This is my original pattern. Do Not Copy, Modify, Reproduce, Sell or Claim as your own. You may sell items made from this pattern, but please Do NOT claim it as your own unique design. Please refer back to me as the original designer for any items you may sell. http://www.facebook.com/ThePerfectKnotCrochet

Top Stitching Photo Tutorial and Goggle Guy Applique Pattern

Goggle Guy Applique

I do a lot of appliques for different things & I often get asked how I sew them onto my projects without them showing in the back.

Well, because it is a pretty commonly asked question, I thought I would go ahead & do a photo tutorial for you all & explain the process.

I will also be adding the pattern for the Goggle Eyes Applique at the end of the tutorial for you here, so stay tuned to the end of the post. ;)


Okay, so the really cool thing about Crochet is that the way the stitches are done there are 2 parts to the stitch where it actually makes sort of like a hollow tube & you can easily work between them if you know the technique.

When I was little & my grandma was teaching me to sew & crochet she would always tell me to "make it look pretty". So she showed me how you could stitch things to your piece without it showing through the back & making it look ugly. This technique is called "Top Stitching" & you can use it for anything you sew onto a Crocheted piece. You can also do the top stitching or top weaving method for embroidering details onto your piece without it showing through the back. (I did that for the mouth in this particular piece. I will cover that particular technique in another post at a later date.)

Anyway, let me explain how Top Stitching is done. I will post the photos here & walk you through the process.

For this tutorial, I just used a closed weave pattern basic 6x6" square to sew the appliques onto.

Whenever you do top stitching with your appliques I find it is best to leave a long yarn tail when you fasten off with whatever color you were working with so that your yarn matches the applique on the front & you do not see a different color around the pieces.

In this case you have 4 parts to the applique & 2 different colors of yarn that need to be matched.

I left about a 24" yarn tail for the grey where I had to go all the way around the eyes & about a 12" for the black where I would be stitching around the strap part.

Place your appliques on your piece where you want them. You can pin them to your piece from the back to hold them in place because you will be working from the front when top stitching your appliques onto your project.

After you get your appliques placed where you would like them on your piece, then attach your yarn tail to your tapestry needle. You will be stitching from the front of your piece & going around the appliques. You will only be working through the top portion of the stitch so that your needle does not poke through the back side of your piece.

Separating the loops of your crochet stitches with the needle (try not to split the yarn when you do this) insert your needle into the top part of the stitch of the project you will be sewing to & then back into the applique from the back of the applique to the front.
You will be working in a whip stitching method in whatever shape your piece is.

You will continue the same process as above all the way around your piece until all of your pieces are connected to the final project.

Keep working with the color that matches the part of your applique until you get to the part where the color changes.

Weave your yarn tail behind the piece of the applique up to the point where you would change back to that color.

When you get to your second color that you need to stitch on, remove your needle from the first yarn tail & attach it to the second one.

Repeat the process of catching the top loops of the stitch & the applique until you finish with the secondary color.

Weave in the second color behind your applique when you are finished working with it & have stitched around the portion of your applique done in that color. Cut the excess yarn from that color & discard.
Reattach the needle to your first color again & continue stitching around the rest of your applique until you get the whole piece attached. Weave in your yarn tail under the applique without going through the back side & cut the excess yarn closely to your applique & discard excess yarn.

While you are stitching be sure to double check your work from behind to make sure none of the other colors have come through the back side of your project & are not showing through.

As you can see in this photo the yarn tails are still attached to my project & I have sewn around one part of the applique & none of the yarn is showing through on the back of the piece.

If you correctly do the top stitching you should have the same results where the back of the project is clean of other colors.

Here is the square with both Goggle eyes & straps attached before adding any further details.

Here is the back of the full square once both the pieces of the appliques have been attached with the Top Stitching & the embroidered mouth detail I did at the bottom. as you can see the square has no other colors on the back side of it.

And just so no one thinks I just took a photo of the back of the square before I stitched anything on, here is the same square with both parts of the appliques stitched on & folded in half. You can see a little bit of the second strap peeking through the back of the squares stitches if you look on the right of the photo. It's really sewed on there I promise! :)

Once again here is the finished project with all of the details stitched on for the mouth & the appliques.

Top stitching is a great technique for finishing your projects with appliques & it makes your finished project look nice & neat! No ugly backs of your projects if you can do the top stitching method & keep it nice & pretty!

I hope you've enjoyed & find this photo tutorial useful for all your applique projects!

Now as I promised... Here is the pattern for the Goggle Guy Appliques shown above! Enjoy & God Bless!

Thank you for stopping by The Perfect Knot Crochet & More!

Michelle K
The Perfect Knot

Goggle Guy Applique & Photo Tutorial

Beginner level pattern written in US Crochet Terms.

Materials Needed:

Size 4.0mm or other Crochet Hook

Worsted Weight Size 4 Yarn in colors Black, Brown, White & Grey (I used Caron Simply Soft in my example)

Tapestry Needle

Scissors

Stitch Legend:

Mgc Rng – Magic Ring

Ch – Chain

SC – Single Crochet

Sl St – Slip Stitch

DC – Double Crochet

St – Stitch

Sts – Stitches

* – Repeat instructions from *

EYES – Make 2

Round 1: Begin with black yarn & a Mgc Rng, 6 SC into ring, pull yarn tail to close & Sl St to 1^st SC to join, Ch 1 & Fasten Off (6 SC)

Round 2: Attach brown yarn into any St with a Sl St, Ch 1 & 2 SC in same St, *2 SC in next St, Repeat around & Sl St to 1^st SC to join, Ch 1 & Fasten Off (12 SC)

Round 3: Attach white yarn with a Sl St into any St, Ch 3 (counts as 1^st DC), 2 DC into the next St, *1 DC into the next St, 2 DC into the next St, Repeat around & Sl St to top of beginning Ch 3 to join, Ch 1 & Fasten Off (18 DC)

Round 4: Attach grey yarn with a Sl St into any St, Ch 1 & SC into same St, 1 SC into each St around, Sl St to 1^st SC to join, Ch 1 & Fasten Off leaving a long tail to sew.

Weave in your all ends except the 2 long grey yarn tails for sewing using the tapestry needle.

  

STRAPS – Can be made longer if you are using something other than a square for your appliques. Just repeat Row 2 until you reach your desired length for your project.

With your grey yarn tails centered at the bottom of your eye work the Straps as follows:

Right Strap –

Row 1: Count 4 Stitches up the right side from the grey yarn tail & attach black yarn with a Sl St & work up the side of the eye working away from the yarn tail towards the top, Ch 1 & 1 SC into same St, 1 SC into next 2 Sts (3 SC)

Rows 2- 4: Ch 1 & Turn, 1 SC into next 3 Sts (3 SC)

At the end of Row 4, Ch 1 & Fasten Off leaving a longer tail for sewing on the black pieces of the goggles to your piece.

Left Strap –

Row 1: Count 6 Stitches up the left side of the eye from the grey yarn tail & attach black yarn with a Sl St & work Down the side back towards the yarn tail, Ch 1 & 1 SC into same St, 1 SC into next 2 Sts (3 SC)

Rows 2- 4: Ch 1 & Turn, 1 SC into next 3 Sts (3 SC)

At the end of Row 4, Ch 1 & Fasten Off leaving a longer tail for sewing on the black pieces of the goggles to your piece.

Attach your pieces to your project using the top stitching method, weave in all your ends & cut excess yarn.

Embroider your mouth using a top stitching weaving method so your pieces don’t show on the back of your project.

© Copyright Michelle R. Kovach/The Perfect Knot 2013. All rights reserved. This is my original pattern. Do Not Copy, Modify, Reproduce, Sell or Claim as your own. You may sell items made from this pattern, but please Do NOT claim it as your own unique design. Please refer back to me as the original designer for any items you may sell. http://www.facebook.com/ThePerfectKnotCrochet