No-Sew Positive Donut Pal

Donuts have always been a hit at my craft shows... so when "Postive Pals" (little crochet animals and such holding an encouraging sign) became popular, I worked on making a Positive Donut. I've sold a few at craft shows, so I wrote up the pattern and now I'm sharing it with my crafty friends. 

It takes less than half an ounce of worsted weight yarn, a bit over .2 ounces of a light brown for the donut, and about the same in a frosting color. You want to make sure the yarns are very close in weight, so that the halves of the donut match up. If you use a thinner weight for one side, and thicker worsted for the other, it will be hard to line up the stitches to crochet them together. 

I used .25 ounces of light tan and .25 ounces of a medium brown with a 3.75 oz hook.

I also used 6 different colors of scrap yarn (4" - 8" lengths) for the sprinkles.

You'll need a stitch marker for keeping track of your rows, a yarn needle for weaving in your ends, and some polyfill. I used 9 mm safety eyes and a short scrap of black yarn to embroider the mouth. 

Start with your donut color. Chain 15 and join with a slip stitch. Ch 1 

I do not work over my yarn tail. I leave it exposed to help with attaching the frosting yarn later. 

Round 1: Sc in each chain. (15) Do not join - we will work in continuous rounds. 

Round 2: (sc 2, inc) x 5. (20)

Round 3: (sc 3, inc) x 5. (25)

Round 4: (sc 4, inc) x 5. (30)

Round 5: sc (30)

Round 6: Make arm, sc 15, make arm, sc 15. (30 + arms)

(Arm: Ch 8. Make a 3 dc bobble in the 2nd chain from hook. Sc in remaining chains. Slip st in the side of the last sc before the arm)

Arm 1

FO at the end of Round 6. 

Now it's time for the frosting side. Attach your frosting color yarn to the wrong side of the donut. Bring your working yarn up through the hole in the donut. For the first row or two, you will be pulling your yarn through the hole of the donut. Don't worry, you don't have to do that for the whole frosting! 

Round 1: Sc in the backside of each chain from the donut starting chain. Count to make sure you have 15 stitches (it's easy to miss one... if needed, you can do in increase to get up to 15). The right side of your frosting should be facing the right side of your donut. 

 Starting frosting

Rounds 2 - 5 of the frosting are the same as the donut. After round 2 or 3, pull up a long loop (so your stitches don't unravel), take the hook out, and push your frosting through the hole of the donut. Now the wrong sides of the donut and the frosting are facing each other, the way they should be. Continue until you're done with round 5. We won't need to add arms on the frosting side. 

 Two rows of frosting done

Frosting pushed through

Round 6: sc (30)

 At the end of round 6

Now is the time to add sprinkles... using short scraps of colored yarn, make random little stitches around the frosting. Once I was close to the end of one scrap, I would tie the next color to it (on the wrong side of my work) and continue on with the new color. Figure out where the center top of your frosting is, in relation to the placement of the arms, and put safety eyes 3 rows down, with 4 stitches between. Embroider a small mouth 1 row below the eyes, centered between them. 

Once your sprinkles and face are done, we'll crochet the donut edges together. You can just sc them together, but I prefer a bit of a frilled edge. I get them by doing a sc, then I chain 1, spin the donut around once to twist the chain, and then I go on to the next sc. It makes an edge that looks a little like a crab stitch, but it's a lot easier! 

Round 7: Hold both sides of the donut together and work 30 sc (or sc, twisted chain) around, working through both the frosting and donut layers. When you get the arm, push it toward the front of the donut and work around the back of it. After every 10 stitches or so, stuff the section you just finished. Before you finish the final stitches, give the donut a pinch all the way around to make sure you don't have any gaps where you missed stuffing. If you find a gap, you can usually push stuffing into it and re-stuff the area you just pushed stuffing out of. You want your donut to be pleasantly plump! 

Here are the pictures for the little card that he holds. You can paste them into a document, change the size to suit your donut, and print them out. I "laminate" mine with packing tape or self-adhesive laminating sheets and use hot glue to attach to the donut. First I put two little stripes of glue on the back of the sign and press it onto the donut. Then I put a touch of glue onto the bobble at the end of the arm, and press the bobble onto the edge of the sign. 

Alien in Flying Saucer no-sew amigurumi pattern

 

Alien in Spaceship

I used worsted weight yarn and a 3.75 mm hook. Weights below are based on worsted weight yarn, which has about 50 yards per ounce, in case you want to figure out yardage for another weight of yarn. (The alien in the yellow spaceship is made with two strands of a lightweight DK and an H hook) 

Alien Color: .25 oz

Spaceship main color: .35 oz 

Spaceship Accent color: .15 oz

Starting at top of head with the Alien Color

R1: 6 sc in MR (6)

R2: inc x 6 (12)

R3: (sc, inc) x 2, Antenna, (sc, inc) x 2, Antenna, (sc, inc) x 2 (18)

Antenna: ch 5, work 2 dc bobble in 3^rd chain from hook, sl st 2, make a sl st in the side of the last sc worked

I goofed with this guy, and only put one repeat of the (sc, inc) between the antenna. 

R4: (sc 2, inc) x 6 (24) Push the antenna out of the way, toward the MR, as you work past them. 

R5-10: sc (24)

Change to spaceship color. In Round 12, use spaceship accent color for 3-dc bobbles (BOB)

Place 1 eye between rows 5 & 6, centered between the antenna. Place two more eyes between rows 7/8, with 2 stitches between. Embroider a smile below the eyes. Optional: you could just use one big eye. It’s an alien… have fun and be imaginative! Once eyes and embroidery are done, stuff the head.

R11: (sc 2, inc) x 8 (32)

R12: (sc, BOB, sc, inc) x 8 (40)

R13: (sc 4, inc) x 8 (48)

R14: (sc 5, inc) x 8 (56) Change to spaceship accent color, but do not cut spaceship color.

R15: Hdc (56) FO spaceship accent color and weave in end. Continue r16 with spaceship color

R16: In 3^rd loop, (sc 5, dec) x 8 (48)

R17: (sc 4, dec) x 8 (40)

R18: (sc 3, dec) x 8 (32)

R19: (sc 2, dec) x 8 (24)

R20: (sc 2, dec) x 6 (18)

Stuff the spaceship, making sure you get into the edges of the widest part.

R21: (sc, dec) x 6 (12) Add any additional stuffing.

R22: dec x 6 (6)

FO, leaving short tail to close up.

 

Percival the Impatient - free low-sew pattern

 Angry items seem to sell well for me at craft shows... angry coffee, angry bananas, angry ducks... so I decided to try an angry bird... and Percival the Impatient came to be. He is a grumpy little fellow who works up quickly, and the only thing you have to sew on is his beak! 

Percival the Impatient

Body color: About .5 oz

Accent color: less than .25 oz

This pattern uses a double increase, where you make 3 sc in one stitch. I abbreviate it as *3sc*.

Beginning at bottom with body color:

R1: sc 9 in MR (9)

R2: (sc 2, *3sc*) x 3 (15)

R3: sc 3, (*3sc*, sc 4) x 2, *3sc*, sc (21)

R4: sc 4, (*3sc*, sc 6) x 2, *3sc*, sc 2 (27)

R5: sc 5, (*3sc*, sc 8) x 2, *3sc*, sc 3 (33)

R6: sc (33)

You should have a three-sided figure. In round 7, we will add legs in the contrast color.

Leg: change to accent color with the stitch before the leg. Chain 15. Starting in the second st from hook, sl st 3, (ch 4, sl st 3) x 2. Sl st back to the end of the chain, changing to the body color with the last sl st.

R7: Sc 11, Leg, sc 5, Leg, sc 17 (33)

Non-counting summary of round 7: legs are centered on the front side with 3 stitches between legs and the corners, and 5 stitches between the legs.

R8-10: sc (33) For Round 8, make sure Percival’s legs are on the outside of the body and work around them.

R11: sc 9, BLO sc, sc 12, BLO sc, sc 10 (33) The BLO stitches should be on the sides of the body, each one the same number of stitches from the closest leg. You can place stitch markers in the front loops you leave open, to make them easier to find later.

R12: (sc 9, dec) x 3 (30)

R13-14: sc (30)

R15: (sc 8, dec) x 3 (27)

In Round 16, we will add arms (change to the contrast color with the stitch before the arm if desired. For my cardinal, I made the arms in the body color). The bottom of the arms will be attached to the body in the front loops left in Round 11. This gives Percival his “hands on the hips impatient” look.

R16: sc 9, arm, sc 10, arm, sc 8 (27)

Arms should be on the sides.

Arm: ch 12, make 3 dc bobble in the 4^th chain from the hook. Sl st into the R11 loop, working behind the “hand” (so the hand is between the legs and the chain for the arms). Sl st into the next chain and each of the remaining chains, changing back to body color with the last chain.

R17-18: sc (27)

R19: (sc 7, dec) x 3 (24)

R20: sc (24)

R21: (sc 6, dec) x 3 (21)

R22-23: sc (21)                 

R24: (sc 5, dec) x 3 (18)

Insert eyes between rows 21 & 22, with 5 stitches visible between them. They should line up with the feet, and be centered between the arms. I used oval Kawaii safety eyes that are ¾” tall.

Stuff body and continue to stuff as you decrease.

R25: sc (18)

R26: (sc, dec) x 6 (12)

R27: dec x 6 (6).

Finish off, leaving about a 6” tail. Use the tail to gather the stitches of R27 and pull closed. Don’t cut the yarn yet… Cut two more pieces about 6” long. Latch them through at the top of Percival’s head, adding the single strand from closing the hole through the loop as you pull the yarn through.  Trim to about 2”. Separate strands of each piece of yarn, and, if desired, brush out with a pet brush.

Options: You could add more strands of hair at the top of the head, to make more of a crest (as I did with the cardinal) or you could do the hair in the accent color.

Beak

With accent color, chain 4. Sl st, sc, hdc. FO, leaving tail to sew to Percival’s face, centered between and 1-2 rows below the eyes. (Since the cardinal beak was black, I left an extra-long tail and used the extra to embroider his eyebrows.)

Embroider Percival’s angry eyebrows. \ /

 With black yarn, start 3 rows above one eye, centered over the eye. Insert the needle two rows down (one row above the eye, even with the inner side of the eye). Repeat with other eye.

 

Thank you to Strawberry Bonnie for helping to test my pattern. 

For my bluebird, I skipped the BLO on round 11 and left this arms untethered, so he can cross his arms (also looks impatient and a bit grumpy)

How about an angry mallard? 

Rounds 1-17: Brown

Round 18: white

Rounds 19-27 Green

Use orange for legs and yellow for beak