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Resizing Amigurumi
Link easily to this tutorial in your patterns: www.planetjune.com/resizing

One of the nice things about amigurumi is that the exact size is rarely important, so you don’t need to worry about matching the designer’s
gauge. Provided your stitches are compact enough that they won’t gape open to leave large holes between them when you add the stuffing,
you have the freedom to experiment with different yarns and hooks to give you a different-sized result.

So, if you’d like your amigurumi to be larger (or smaller) than the sample pictured in the pattern, how can you do that? You have several
options, and I’ll go over them all for you in this article.

Note: You can also use the techniques described below to make a set of parent and baby animals! For more details, see my article ‘How to
make ‘baby’ amigurumi animals‘. 

Method 1. Change the Yarn Size

To make a larger amigurumi, use a heavier (thicker) yarn than that recommended in the pattern; to make a smaller amigurumi, use a lighter
(thinner yarn). You’ll also need to change your hook size accordingly (see Choosing a Hook Size, below).
The photo above shows my AquaAmi Polar Bear pattern worked in bulky weight yarn with a G7 US/4.5mm hook (left) and worsted weight
yarn with an E US/3.5mm hook (right). You can see that the worsted weight option is about 3/4 of the size of the bulky weight option. In the
photo below, the same applies – the blue elephant is made with the bulky option, and the grey elephants with the worsted option.

You can increase the size difference even more by using much lighter (or heavier) yarn and a correspondingly much smaller (or larger) hook,
for example you can go right down to crochet thread and a steel hook, as shown by bettika67, who turned my life sized Fuzzy Guinea Pigs:

into the most adorable 1-inch piggies, just by using very fine thread and a tiny hook:
Method 2. Hold Multiple Strands Together

To save buying extra-thick yarn when increasing the size of an amigurumi, you can use a standard yarn, but hold two (or more) strands
together as you crochet, together with a larger hook (see below). You can see the effect of this here:

Both these turtles were made using my AquaAmi Sea Turtle pattern and the same yarn (bulky weight, in this case, but the same applies for
any yarn weight). The turtle on the left is the one shown in the pattern, but for the giant turtle on the right, I doubled the yarn by holding two
strands together and used a correspondingly larger hook (L US/8mm instead of G7 US/4.5mm). The result is a turtle that’s about 1.5 times the
size.

The giant Pumpkin uses 2 strands of worsted weight yarn (instead of 1) and an I US/5.5mm hook (instead of E US/3.5mm) to super-size it to
about 1.5 times the size of the normal pumpkins.
My big Gingy uses 2 strands of worsted weight yarn (instead of 1) and an I US/5.5mm hook (instead of E US/3.5mm). The finished piece
was 44% larger, and took 2.7x more yarn, than the standard Gingerbread Man.

(Although I can’t give you an exact formula – because it depends on how tightly you crochet at each size, and how big your larger hook is
compared with your smaller hook – you can use my numbers above as a good rule-of-thumb indication for the increase in yarn quantity when
you hold the yarn doubled.)

Hook size for multiple yarn strands

Using multiple strands of yarn has its own challenges – you need to use a hook that’s large enough to catch all the yarn strands with every
stitch. For two strands of yarn held together, you’ll probably need a hook at least 1.7x the size (in mm) that you’d use with a single strand.

For example, I use an E US/3.5mm hook with worsted weight yarn. To hold 2 strands together, I’d calculate:1.7 x 3.5 = 5.95. The closest
hook size to 5.95 is 6mm, so, for my first attempt, I’d try using a J US/6mm hook with two strands of worsted weight yarn. 

For three or more strands held together, take your yarn and all your hooks and experiment until you find the smallest hook size that lets you
easily grab all your strands with every stitch.

Method 3: Supersize by Combining Methods 1 & 2

To increase the size of your amigurumi still further, you can combine methods 1 and 2 to make an ami that’s up to about twice 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 (see Choosing a Hook
Size, below).

My Mega Whale, above, is made following my Tiny Whale pattern exactly, but instead of using worsted weight yarn and an E US/3.5mm
hook, I used two strands of a bulky weight yarn and an L US/8mm hook. And, as Mega Whale is twice the size of a standard Tiny Whale, I
also doubled the eye size, from 8mm to 15mm.
While you can go still larger with this technique by using multiple strands of thicker yarn, there’s a trade-off: as you increase the size of each
stitch, the space between the stitches also becomes more noticeable, because it’s correspondingly larger. The stitches are also chunkier, so it
doesn’t give as smooth a finish as using a finer yarn and smaller hook.

It’s up to you how large you’re willing to go – you can always try crocheting the first few rounds of the pattern and see if you like the fabric
that you’re creating or if the stitches are just too chunky or gappy for your taste. (For completeness, I’ll include the way to avoid this –
Method 4, below – although it’s much more advanced and not something I’d recommend!)

Method 4: Rewrite the Pattern(!)

Note: I’m just including this for completeness! I don’t recommend you try this method unless you’re keen on developing your design skills.

As single crochet stitches are square, in theory you can double the size of an amigurumi pattern without changing the yarn or hook by
doubling both the number of stitches in each round and the number of rounds, so each stitch of the pattern is turned into a 2×2 square of
stitches (2 stitches wide and 2 rounds tall).

For example, every time the pattern calls for 1 stitch, you make 2 (so e.g. if Rnd 1 is 6 sc, you’ll make 12 sc) and you repeat every round (so
you’d repeat your new Rnd 1 with a second round of 12 sc).

But this is a very simplistic method, and far from perfect. You’ll end up with stitch counts like this at the end of the rounds: 12 st, 12 st, 24 st,
24 st, 36 st, 36 st. If I were designing a double-sized animal I’d then refine this new pattern by spreading the increases out, to something like
6 st, 12 st, 18 st, 24 st, 30 st, 36 st over those same 6 rounds, so the increases are made evenly and not stepped every 2 rounds.

It’d be hard to keep track of your rounds and stitch counts when you’re turning each stitch into four stitches, for even a basic amigurumi
pattern. More complex patterns that include precise shaping and/or colour changes would be even more challenging.

So I wouldn’t really recommend this method at all – by the time you’ve done all the work in doubling the stitches and the rounds, smoothing
out the increases and decreases, and tidying up any shaping and colour-changing, it’d probably be easier to start from scratch and design a
new pattern!

Method 5: Go Giant!

With my Giant Amigurumi method, you can resize a pattern from just over twice the size (with the mini giant technique) to 3-4 times the size
of the original, like my giant dinosaur:
Learn all my upsizing tips and techniques (including patterns for the giant eyes!) in my ebook The Complete Guide to Giant Amigurumi:

Choosing a hook size

When you’re changing the weight of the yarn used in the pattern (whether by using a different yarn weight and/or holding multiple strands
together), you’ll also need to change your hook size by a corresponding amount.

For amigurumi, I usually recommend the following hook sizes as a starting point:

DK weight (#3) yarn: C US/2.75mm hook

worsted weight (#4) yarn: E US/3.5mm hook
bulky weight (#5) yarn: G7 US/4.5mm hook

But the best hook size for your yarn also depends on how tightly you crochet, and the specific yarn you choose – there’s a lot of variability
between yarns, even if they are marked as the same weight (see my Worsted Weight Yarn Comparison for more details on this)!

My advice is always to crochet the first few rounds of the pattern using your best-guess hook size, then push some fibrefill stuffing behind
your work to open up the stitches and see how it looks:

If the stitches stretch open too much and the fibrefill is clearly visible, reduce your hook size and try again.