Crochet Adorable Tiger

orange yarn, black yarn in worsted weight
stuffing (polyfill or wool)
safety eyes (8 or 9mm for this size)
crochet hook (I love using the size A to get a tight fabric but any hook up to size G will work. You will just get a much bigger animal!)

Begin Here:
We will use orange yarn to start. Please note: as written in the pattern below, after the 8th round, change to black and crochet half a round with black before changing back to orange. Crochet 2 orange rounds. On the next round, insert some black segments. Then crochet 2 orange rounds. You can be creative and make it up as you go along! Just remember to leave slack when you drop the yarn and pick it up again to change colours. To keep it even simpler, just cut the old colour leaving a small tail to tie old and new yarns together to hold them. No one will know since all the ends will be inside your amigurumi!

Embroidering the nose and mouth:

Embroider the nose and mouth after you finish the body/head. Thread about 18 inches of black yarn on your needle.

1. Go in from the bottom of the tiger and make a triangle going back and forth with the black yarn for the nose starting at the wide edge. Keep your stitches close together so you see minimal orange showing through. Our tiger had 6 stitches.

2. Come out with your needle at the base of the triangle and go back in where you want the centre of the mouth to be (we will call this point X). You will end up with the small vertical line below his nose. (Did you know this is called the "philtrum"???)

3. Come back out at one corner of the mouth. Enter back in at "X".

4. Come back out at the other corner of the mouth. Enter back in at "X".

5. Now have a look at the 2 sides of the mouth. To make sure the little smile/curve stays put, come out midway between the corner of the mouth and "X". Catch the horizontal yarn and go back in at the same place.

6. Do this for the other side of the mouth.

You may have to do this a few times until you have something that you like. When you are happy, go back out to where you started at the bottom of the tiger, tie a knot and push the knot into the tiger's head/body.