The past few weeks I have been diligently working away at crocheted gifts for the new little ones in my life. My book best friend and many of my relatives are having babies this fall, and I have been horribly busy with other projects and have pushed back working on their gifts. But I have started and am almost finished! I wanted to do something unique for each of them, but did not want to learn lots of patterns in a short period of time, so I decided to do the same pattern with all the different fun baby yarns I am always seeing at Michael’s!

I have had my eye on BlueStudio’s Timothy the T-Rex for as long as I can remember. Its chubby little body and simple design are just so cute and perfect for gifts for babies and little ones! The pattern originally calls for Worsted weight yarn and a 3.75 hook, but i didn’t want him to only be 7 in tall, because that’s no fun. So instead of using the suggested weight, I tried 4 different yarns, with 3 of those being successful!

For this post I am going to go through the 4 yarns I used and how they went and what I would try next time!

Yarn #1

Yarnspirations Bernat Baby Blanket, Color – Funny Prints

With this yarn I used a 7mm hook. I went through a few different sizes before I landed on this size. To test, I would do the first few rows of the pattern to make sure the stitches were tight enough so hold stuffing, but the hook was large enough to work the yarn.

This dino ended up being my favorite, but not great for new baby. Even with the smaller hook, the holes between the stitches are to large for baby fingers. The dino also is huge! The final product was 17 inches tall. He ended up being about the size of a small newborn, so realistically it is not a great gift for a new baby. Luckily the new baby I was making him for has an older sister, so she will be receiving a present too!

By the end I had used almost 3 balls of this yarn, so this is not a small project. When using this yarn, always buy more than you think you need because it is just so large and the skeins do not come with a ton of yardage, especially the baby blanket yarn. This dino also require almost an entire bag of stuffing. I was not ready for just how large this dino was going to be, but I have no regrets!

Yarn #2

Baby Bee Adore-a-ball, Color – Mint Charm

This is the yarn that was a flop. It is really soft, but has a strange texture that has too strong of friction. i chose it because it was a bit lighter than the Bernat Blanket yarn, but was still chunky enough to make the dino big. When I tried to single crochet into a magic circle with it, the yarn did not have the movement it needed so the circle would not tighten without breaking the yarn. After several attempts with this yarn I returned what I had not used (I had purchased a lot of it) and decided to try something else.

For amigurumi projects I do NOT recommend this yarn. It is probably great for blankets, but I do not see it working for much else.

Yarn #3

Yarnspirations Bernat Pipsqueak, Color – Funny Bunny

This yarn is so soft! I love the way it feels and the colors are precious. I have had my eye on this yarn for some time and finally had an excuse to buy some! This time I bought several skeins because I was unsure as to how much I needed and did not want to come back multiple times.

This dino ended up being the second largest, and I had to restart 4-5 times because you CANNOT see anything you are doing with this yarn. I worked strictly by feeling where the single crochets were. By the 4th time starting, I realized I needed to leave stitch markers in every few rounds. I mark them on the pattern so if I got lost I could go back (like a saved level on a video game haha).

As much as I love this yarn and love the final product, I do not think I would put myself through that kind of torture again. It just took too long and was too stressful. I tried several different techniques, even crocheting with a different yarn and weaving this yarn along with, but nothing worked to make it easier. I will be making lots of blankets with this in the future, but never another plush.

By the end I probably used 2.5 balls of yarn, and not as much stuffing as I should have. The hook I used was a 6mm. The final product was just under 13 inches tall.

Yarn #4

Yarnspirations Bernat Softee Baby, Color – Mint

I do not know why I was so attached to Bernat Baby yarn, but all three of my successful products used this brand. With this yarn I doubled up because I loved the texture, but it was so thin that the final product would have been tiny. I purchased 2 skeins and crocheted using 2 strands instead of just one. I used a 4.5mm hook, but probably could have made my life a little easier by using a 5mm.

This dino is by far the smallest, but a great size for a new born. The yarn is very soft and almost silky. The holes between stitches are small enough that I do not have to worry about little fingers poking through. Overall this yarn is what I will probably use for the other dinos I make over the next few weeks. I do need a break because it makes my hands hurt if I work on it too long.

Despite buying 2 skeins, I probably only used about 1 skein’s worth of yarn. The final product was 9 inches tall, a little smaller than I wanted, but it works.

 

 

I had a lot of fun doing this experiment with the different yarns! Do you have a favorite baby yarn you love using? If so leave a comment, I’d love to try it out!