How to Embroider a Simple Smile on Amigurumi

I love amigurumi. Like, a lot. For me, part of the fun of making amigurumi is that you tend to pick up a few extra skills along the way that you otherwise may not have. For example, I’ve always found embroidery beautiful but it was never something I had the urge to learn. When I started making amigurumi however, I quickly learned that I had to pick up a few tricks to make them really come to life. There are a few simple methods that will really help you up your ami game. What I’m going to show you today is the how to make a simple smile.

The simple smile is one of the most common shapes I use. It almost always makes an appearance in some shape or form when I’m creating a face.

Here’s a quick photo tutorial I made to show the simple embroidered smile that I use the most often in my amigurumi creations.

First things first, the tools you will need are as follows:

• embroidery needle
• embroidery thread, craft cord, or crochet thread

Thread your needle with the craft cord and hold the amigurumi part that you’re ready to embroider on.

Decide where to place the mouth. Then, working from back to front, insert your needle.

Pull your needle and thread all the way through. Now, pass your needle back a few stitches down so you are forming a straight line with your thread.

Pull your thread all the way through and you can see that you’ve formed the straight line.

From here, pull the straight line down a row or two to form an arc shape. I like to use the back of whatever needle I’m using to do this, but you can also use your fingers to pinch the thread and pull it down.

Once you have the curve at a depth that you like, you need to anchor it in to place. To do this, we will need to make the tiniest of stitches in the middle of “dip” of the smile. Insert your needle through the yarn at the middle of the smile, just above where the dip is.

Pull thread all the way through.

Now, insert your needle just underneath the thread of the arc you created. Try to insert your needle as close to the same point that you initially entered through just a moment ago on the top of the smile.

Now, pull your thread all the way through and tie off your ends in the back of your work. There you have it – a simple embroidered smile! Tie off ends in the back of your work.

Once you master this little technique you can totally use it to make other shapes on your amigurumi face, like sleeping or happy eyes!