{"id":789,"date":"2008-12-08T21:58:26","date_gmt":"2008-12-09T02:58:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/?p=789"},"modified":"2015-12-03T03:46:56","modified_gmt":"2015-12-03T08:46:56","slug":"sizing-up-and-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/sizing-up-and-down\/","title":{"rendered":"sizing up (and down)"},"content":{"rendered":"
This old post has been revised and rewritten – please see my Resizing Amigurumi<\/a> article for my best advice on this topic!<\/div>\n

I’ve had a couple of requests lately from people who like my patterns, but want to make a larger version. So, the question is, is it easily possible to ‘size up’ amigurumi designs?<\/p>\n

There are a few of ways I can think of to adjust a pattern, so here are my thoughts on this…<\/p>\n

METHOD 1:<\/strong> Double everything. By this I mean, every time the pattern calls for 1 stitch, you make 2 (so e.g. if Rnd 1 is 6 sc, you will do 12 sc) AND double the number of Rnds (so you would repeat your new Rnd 1 with a second Rnd of 12 sc). Note:<\/strong> this is not<\/strong> my recommended method! It would be hard to keep track of your rounds and stitch counts, when you are turning each stitch into four stitches.<\/p>\n

If you do want to attempt it, it should work fairly well, as sc is a square stitch (same height and width) so by doubling the length and width you are essentially making each stitch into a 2×2 square of stitches, but it’s not perfect – if I was designing a double sized animal I would even up the rounds – e.g. this method will give you stitch counts like this at the end of the rounds: 12 st, 12 st, 24 st, 24 st, 36 st, 36 st… If I was designing it I would even it up to something like 6 st, 12 st, 18 st, 24 st, 30 st, 36 st so the increases are made evenly and not stepped every 2 rounds.<\/p>\n

METHOD 2:<\/strong> Use thicker yarn and a larger hook. If you compare the blue and grey elephants below, the greys are made with worsted weight yarn and an E hook and the blue is made with bulky weight yarn and a G7 hook. You can see this has made the blue elephant quite a bit larger.<\/p>\n

\"AfricAmi<\/p>\n

METHOD 3:<\/strong> Double your yarn (use 2 strands held together) and use a larger hook. You can see the effect of this here:<\/p>\n

\"AquaAmi<\/p>\n

The two turtles use the same pattern, but one uses doubled yarn and a correspondingly larger hook (L instead of G7). The result is a turtle that’s about 1.5 times the size.<\/p>\n

Now you could combine methods 2 and 3 to make an ami that’s about double the size of the original, by using 2 strands of a bulkier weight yarn (than the pattern calls for) held together, and a much larger hook. This would be much quicker to make and easier to calculate than method 1, as you would follow the pattern stitches exactly as written.<\/p>\n

The downside of using methods 2+3 is that, because each stitch is much larger, the space between the stitches is more noticeable because it’s correspondingly larger. The stitches are also more chunky, so it doesn’t give as smooth a finish as using the finer yarn and smaller hook.<\/p>\n

You could also apply Method 2<\/strong> in reverse to size down a pattern, by using a finer yarn than the pattern calls for, and a correspondingly smaller hook. You can go right down to crochet thread and a steel hook, as shown by bettika67<\/a>, who turned my life sized guinea pigs:<\/p>\n

\"Fuzzy<\/p>\n

into the most adorable 1-inch piggies, just by using very fine thread and a tiny hook:<\/p>\n

\"meerschweinis<\/p>\n

So there you go, 3 ways you could increase the size of a pattern, plus one easy method for reducing the size. This advice isn’t limited to amigurumi (although Method 1 is limited to patterns worked in single crochet). For example, you could turn a pattern for something like a baby hat into a child-sized or even adult-sized hat, or reduce a full-size pattern down to child-sized, by using some of these methods. Hopefully this will give some of you more confidence to attempt some resizing of your own!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This old post has been revised and rewritten – please see my Resizing Amigurumi article for my best advice on this topic! I’ve had a couple of requests lately from people who like my patterns, but want to make a larger version. So, the question is, is it easily possible to ‘size up’ amigurumi designs? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crochet","category-tutorials"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}