Tutorial

“Inside out” amigurumi (right vs. wrong side)

January 3, 2018

There are two sides to each amigurumi piece that have slightly different patterns or textures. This is because, unlike a flat crochet piece, your amigurumi pieces is usually worked in a continuous round. Because the piece isn’t turned at the end of each round, you don’t even out the texture of the stitches. Instead they all face one direction. So, how can you tell if your amigurumi is inside out?

You might sometimes hear this referred to as the “right” or “wrong” side of amigurumi. I’m not sure where that name originated, but either side will work perfectly fine for your finished pieces. The most important thing is which texture you prefer to look at!

There are two crochet pieces below to demonstrate the differences between “outside out (or right)” vs “inside out (or wrong)” amigurumi spheres. For your pieces to have the right side on the outside of the doll, you will usually have to flip your work at some point.

The right side of crochet

The “right” side – you can see the little upside down “v” of each stitch. To my eye, they always look like little brackets ( )

The “wrong” side – you can see a straight line marking every stitch which you won’t be able to spot on the other side

Amigurumi pieces tend to naturally curve so that the inside is facing out. For smaller amigurumi pieces (such as arms or other tight tubes) I will usually turn them after round 2 or 4, since it gets difficult to turn if you wait much longer. For larger pieces, I make sure I’ve done it before any decreases start. This is usually the point where it’s comfortable to turn it.

You can see this turn in action at the 6:37 mark of my Pikachu video tutorial to help illustrate what I’m talking about!