I’ve developed this Ultimate Stripes method to make the most perfect stripes in amigurumi. There is absolutely no seam or colour jog, and no way to tell where the join is in the finished piece – it’s completely perfect!

Where’s the seam, you ask? (In the green round, it’s exactly in the middle of the photo. In the round below, the join is also somewhere in the photo, but I can’t even remember where it is!)

I recommend you watch the video to see the Ultimate Stripes method in action, but in case you prefer text or want something visual to refer to, I’ve also made a photo tutorial version for you.

Quick finder:

• Video tutorial (right- and left-handed)
• Step-by-Step Instructions (right-handed)
• Step-by-Step Instructions (left-handed)
• FAQ: Additional Notes
• Use in Amigurumi Patterns

Ultimate Stripes for Amigurumi (right-handed)

Click to watch this video on YouTube.

Ultimate Stripes for Amigurumi (left-handed)

Click to watch this video on YouTube.

Note: The videos may look a little small embedded in the blog: if so, you can fullscreen them or click through to YouTube to watch them full-sized 🙂

Step-by-Step Instructions (right-handed)

Fasten on by drawing up a loop in any stitch (below, left). Ch 1 (below, right).

Single crochet in the next stitch (below, left), crocheting over the starting yarn tail to lock it in place. Single crochet in each remaining stitch around (below, right).

Cut yarn leaving a 2″ tail. Draw up last loop to pull cut end through to the top (below, left – arrow marks first sc, for next step.) Insert your hook from back to front under both loops of the first single crochet (the second stitch) of the round (below, right).

Yarn over and draw the cut yarn end through to the back (below, left – arrow marks last sc, for next step). Insert your hook from back to front under the back loop of the last stitch of the round (below, right).

Yarn over and draw the cut yarn end through to the back to complete the join (below). (In the next round, work over the remaining yarn tail to lock it in place.)

Step-by-Step Instructions (left-handed)

Fasten on by drawing up a loop in any stitch (below, left). Ch 1 (below, right).

Single crochet in the next stitch (below, left), crocheting over the starting yarn tail to lock it in place. Single crochet in each remaining stitch around (below, right).

Cut yarn leaving a 2″ tail. Draw up last loop to pull cut end through to the top (below, left – arrow marks first sc, for next step.) Insert your hook from back to front under both loops of the first single crochet (the second stitch) of the round (below, right).

Yarn over and draw the cut yarn end through to the back (below, left – arrow marks last sc, for next step). Insert your hook from back to front under the back loop of the last stitch of the round (below, right).

Yarn over and draw the cut yarn end through to the back to complete the join (below). (In the next round, work over the remaining yarn tail to lock it in place.)

FAQ: Additional Notes

How Do I Make Thicker Stripes?
It doesn’t matter if your stripes are 1 round high or 10; the technique is always exactly the same. For this technique to work so perfectly, you have to cut the yarn at the end of every round, whether you’re changing colour or not.

How Do I Count my Stitches?
If you’re counting your stitches to check your stitch count, you should make one fewer sc stitches than you need in the round, because the ch 1 at the start (plus the finishing steps at the end to create the top of the stitch) counts as the first sc of the round.

What Do I Do About Increases & Decreases?
If your pattern rounds include increases or decreases, you can work them as written, unless the round starts with an increase (2 sc in next st) or decrease (invdec). This is because the first stitch of the round (the ch 1) will be the fake sc stitch, so it can’t form part of an increase or decrease.

The easiest way to fix that is to move the increase or decrease to the end of the pattern repeat, so instead of e.g. (2 sc in next st, sc in next X st), rewrite the part in parentheses as (sc in next X st, 2 sc in next st) – and remember that the fake stitch counts as the first of those X sc stitches!

Note: The above advice assumes a basic amigurumi pattern with a simple repeat that places increases or decreases evenly around the round, e.g. “(invdec, sc in next X st) six times”. A pattern with more complex shaping would need careful modification to make sure you aren’t disrupting the shaping – that’s beyond the scope of this tutorial!

How Do I Make an Amigurumi with a Striped Section?
If you’re making an amigurumi that starts out with a solid colour and then has a striped section, you can make the first part of the amigurumi in a continuous spiral as usual. When you reach the end of the solid-coloured part, join with a slip stitch to the next stitch and fasten off. From here on, you can work in joined rounds using the Ultimate Stripes technique.

How Do I Return to Spirals After Finishing the Stripes?
Once you’ve completed the entire striped section of your piece, you can resume working in continuous spirals. To do this, start the first round of the colour you’ll be continuing with as an Ultimate Stripes round. (If your piece has a back or bottom side that will be less visible on the finished piece, start this round on that side, as there’ll be a slight jog at the point where you transition from joined rounds to spirals.)

When you reach the end of the round, do not cut the yarn or finish the round. Insert your hook into the closest strand only (rightmost for RH, leftmost for LH) of the starting ch 1 of the round, then complete a single crochet. The stitch you’ve just completed is the first stitch of the second round, so you can place your start-of-round stitch marker in this stitch and then continue crocheting in a spiral. Here’s how that looks:

Right-handed. L: arrow shows the closest strand of the ch 1; R: the completed sc

Left-handed. L: arrow shows the closest strand of the ch 1; R: the completed sc

How Do I Make the Cleanest Transition Between Spirals and Stripes?
For the smoothest colour transitions between the spiral and striped sections, switch from a continuous spiral to Ultimate Stripes for the round before the first colour change, and return to working in a continuous spiral after the first round following the last colour change.

Do I Have to Move the Join?
You’ll see that in the video I recommend moving the join with every round of these stripes, so the joins don’t stack on top of each other. This will give the most perfect result, so I do recommend you do this if your pattern allows:

• If the pattern you’re using requires a start-of-round stitch marker so you’ll be able to line up the position of some asymmetrical shaping or colourwork at a later point on the piece, you can still use the marker to mark the position of the original start of the round, even though you’ll be starting the striped rounds in different place. Move the marker up each time you reach it, but otherwise ignore it while you’re working the stripes. Once the striped section has finished, you can start the next round in the marked stitch and continue from there.
• If your pattern has both stripes and asymmetrical shaping within the same rounds (so it matters exactly where you place the increases or decreases), you can use this technique without starting each round at a different point around the circle. The general Ultimate Stripes technique will still work, but, for security, I’d recommend that you tie the starting and ending yarn tails from the previous round together on the inside of the piece before you start the next round.

I Don’t Want to Cut the Yarn Each Round!
If you hate the idea of cutting the yarn and rejoining it for every round, my No-Cut Join is the best alternative option. It does leave a slightly visible seam at the end of each round, but there’s still no colour jog and you never need to cut the yarn!

Use in Amigurumi Patterns

You can safely use the Ultimate Stripes technique for any of my patterns that use stripes in joined rounds, like my snake patterns:

…and others (e.g. Ring-tailed Lemur tail, Easter Eggs, Christmas Baubles, Ami Paint Set brush and paint tube, Red Panda tail, Iguana tail, African Violets pot, all pictured below).

You can also substitute this join for a normal join to give you neater stripes in any other amigurumi pattern, or to add stripes to any amigurumi (it’s the stripe equivalent of substituting invdec for a sc2tog: it will work in almost every case). This join will improve the appearance of striped hats too, or any other pieces single crocheted in the round!

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