Happy Snails to You - another free "Tails (and more) from the Scrap Bag" pattern

 

I was asked to make a batch of small colorful snails for birthday party favors. After looking at some of the available patterns, I played around and came up with this pattern... with minimal sewing and using small amounts of scrap yarn. One snail uses less than an ounce of yarn, about .4 for the main color and .3 for the contrast color. Antenna are crocheted as you go, so the only sewing (other than embroidering a smile) is a few long stitches to hold the shell coil together.  These work up quickly (unless you crochet at a snail's pace 😄), so you can probably work one up in one sitting. 

I made mine with an F hook and worsted weight yarn. You want your stitches to be tight enough that your stuffing doesn't show through, so if you crochet loosely, you may need to go down a hook size. I used 6 mm safety eyes. You'll also need a small amount of sport weight black yarn or embroidery floss for the smile (I took a short length of worsted weight yarn and split it into two 2-ply pieces for embroidering, since I didn't have black sport weight.)

Okay, let's get started

With MC (Main Color)

Round 1: 4 sc in Magic Ring (4)

Round 2: inc, antenna, 2 inc, antenna, inc (8)

(Antenna: chain 5, 2 sc in 2nd ch from hook, slip stitch in remaining ch)

Round 3: *sc, inc*, repeat around (12)

(Round 3 is tricky... you do one sc & inc, push the antenna out of the way, then do the next two sc, inc after the antenna. Push the second antenna out of the way and do the last sc, inc.)

Round 4: *2 sc, inc*, repeat (16)

Rounds 5-8: sc (16)

Insert 6 mm safety eyes between rows 5 & 6, with 4 stitches between. Embroider a mouth two rows below the eyes. 

You can get fancy with the eyes, adding eyebrows, like on the orange and black guy:

Or add little eyelashes, like on this pink and white gal: 

Or, if you don't want to use safety eyes, you can just embroider some eyes... 

Round 9: *2 sc, dec*, repeat (12)

Rounds 10-15: sc (12) Lightly stuff head. The rest of the snail is not stuffed. 

Change to Contrasting Color

Rounds 16-51: sc (12), working 3 rows in CC, then 3 rows in MC. You will have 6 stripes of each color when you're done. For this one, I used variegated yarn and kept track of rows.  Finish off, leaving a long tail to sew coil. 

 Sew through the coils, bring the needle out through the neck. 

After pushing the needle through, I went back through the exit hole for my next stitch, so that the stitch was hidden inside the tube of the snail's coil. 

Go back and forth through the coils 4 or 5 times to secure it. 

(When I have time to make another one, I'm going to try sewing the edges of the coil together and see if that has a better finish. Sometimes the coils get a little gap this way. But, if you've read my October blog, I've been crazy busy lately!) 

You can switch things up, and use more than two colors. 

The rainbow guy on the left used six colors, just two stripes of each color. 

The one on the left here used pink for the head, but then variegated (pink, cream, gray) and cream for the stripes. (I  mis-read my own pattern and made his head too short... started the stripes too soon!) 

On the right, he has a light purple head, but cream, blue, and purple stripes. 

I would love to see your finished snails... you can tag @penguinplacecrafts on Instagram or save them to your projects on Ravelry.