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So skulls are actually way easier than you’d think for amigurumi and I made like five of them last October 2023 because my niece wanted them for her room year-round which was kind of goth but whatever. The basic shape is just a sphere with some decreases in weird places and honestly once you get the eye socket shaping down it’s pretty much autopilot.
You’re gonna need worsted weight yarn and I used Caron Simply Soft in white or off-white because it was on sale at Michaels but Red Heart Super Saver works too if you don’t mind it being a bit stiffer. Actually the stiffness kind of helps the skull hold its shape so maybe that’s better. I also made one with Lion Brand Pound of Love and it was too soft and kind of floppy looking which defeated the whole skull vibe.
Start with a magic ring and do 6 single crochets into it. Pull it tight because you don’t want a hole at the top of the skull’s head. Then you’re increasing like a normal sphere for rounds 2 through 6 or so.
- Round 1: 6 sc in magic ring
- Round 2: inc in each stitch (12)
- Round 3: sc, inc around (18)
- Round 4: 2 sc, inc around (24)
- Round 5: 3 sc, inc around (30)
- Round 6: 4 sc, inc around (36)
The annoying thing about this whole project is that the eye sockets need to be shaped while you’re crocheting and you can’t really stuff it yet so you’re working with this floppy fabric and trying to imagine where the face will be. I messed up the placement on my first one and the eyes were way too far apart so it looked like a hammerhead shark skull or something.
After round 6 you do maybe 4 or 5 rounds of just straight single crochet with no increases. This makes the top dome part of the skull. My dog kept stealing my stitch marker during this part and I had to chase her around the apartment like three times. She’s obsessed with anything small and rubbery.
Now here’s where it gets specific for the skull shape. You need to create indentations for the eye sockets and it’s gonna look wrong until you stuff it so just trust the process I guess. Around round 11 or 12 you start doing some strategic decreases.
What I did was mark where I wanted the eyes to be with stitch markers or just scraps of different colored yarn. The eyes should be roughly in the front half of the sphere and spaced about 8-10 stitches apart depending on how big you made your skull. For each eye socket you’re gonna decrease 3 or 4 stitches in a cluster.
Like for round 11: sc around until you hit your first eye marker spot, then do inv dec twice, sc across to the second eye marker spot, inv dec twice, sc to end of round. That creates shallow dips.
Round 12: do the same thing but offset the decreases slightly so you’re not stacking them directly on top of each other… actually wait no, sometimes I do stack them, it depends on how deep you want the sockets. Honestly just try it and see what happens.
The thing about amigurumi is you can kinda squish it and reshape it as you go especially before stuffing so if the eye sockets look weird just adjust.
After the eye socket rounds you do a few more straight rounds and then you start decreasing for the bottom of the skull but not as aggressively as you increased because skulls are wider at the top than the bottom usually or at least that’s how I think about it.
I was watching Love Is Blind while making these and got so distracted during one episode that I did an entire round of increases instead of decreases and didn’t notice until I was like three rounds past it. Had to unravel the whole thing which was supremely annoying especially with Caron Simply Soft because it splits if you look at it wrong.
The decreasing for the bottom goes something like:
- 3 sc, dec around
- 2 sc, dec around
- sc, dec around
- dec around until closed
But before you close it up completely you gotta stuff it. I use polyfil stuffing from literally any craft store. The cheap stuff works fine. Really pack it into the top dome part and then use smaller pieces to stuff around the eye sockets to make them stay indented. You might need to use your hook or a chopstick or whatever to really push the stuffing into the right spots.
The eye sockets should look hollow and dark and you can emphasize this by pushing stuffing away from those areas. Some people actually leave the eye sockets completely unstuffed behind the front layer of stitches which creates a deeper shadow effect but then the skull can collapse a bit if you’re not careful.
Once it’s stuffed you finish closing up the bottom with decreases and fasten off. Weave in the end on the inside or bottom where it won’t show.
Now for the face details which is where the skull actually starts looking like a skull and not just a lumpy white blob. You need black yarn for this part and I used Red Heart Super Saver in black because I had it lying around.
For the nose hole you basically make a triangle shape. I usually do a small upside-down triangle right between and below the eye sockets. You can embroider this with a yarn needle using satin stitch or you can do French knots or honestly just stitch a triangle outline and fill it in however. There’s no right way.
The teeth are optional but they make it look way more skull-like obviously. I do a row of small vertical stitches along where the mouth would be. Usually like 6-8 teeth stitches across the front. Some people get really detailed and make individual tooth shapes but that’s too much work for something that’s gonna sit on a shelf or be a decoration.
You could also add a mouth line above the teeth just a simple curved line embroidered in black. I sometimes skip this if I’m being lazy because honestly the eyes and nose are the most important parts for reading as “skull.”
The eyes themselves… you can leave them as hollow indents which looks cool and shadowy, or you can add black felt circles glued in, or embroider black circles with satin stitch. I’ve done all three methods and they all work fine. The embroidered ones take longest but look most polished I guess.
One time I used those plastic safety eyes that you normally use for stuffed animals and it looked absolutely terrible. Too cute and doll-like. Don’t do that unless you’re specifically going for a cute cartoony skull which I guess some people are but that wasn’t my vibe.
For variations you can make the skull bigger by doing more increase rounds at the beginning or smaller by stopping increases earlier. I made a tiny one with thread weight yarn and a tiny hook once just to see if I could and it was like the size of a walnut. Took forever because thread crochet is tedious but it was cute I guess.
You can also add embellishments like crochet or glue on some small flowers for a Day of the Dead type skull. I did this with some tiny roses made from ribbon for one of them and it actually looked pretty cool. Hot glue works fine for attaching stuff like that.
If you want to make it into a garland for Halloween you can make a bunch of skulls and string them together. I did this by leaving long tails when fastening off and using those tails to tie them onto a length of black cord or ribbon. Made like eight skulls in different sizes and hung them across my fireplace mantel.
The whole project takes maybe 2-3 hours per skull depending on size and detail level. The first one always takes longer because you’re figuring out the shaping but after that you can kinda zone out and just crochet.
Some people add a little loop at the top to hang them as ornaments. Just chain 10 or so before you fasten off the top and attach it to form a loop. Then you can hang them on a Halloween tree or whatever.
If you want the skull to look more realistic you could use off-white or cream colored yarn instead of bright white. I used Bernat Super Value in Natural and it gave it more of an aged bone look which was neat. Or you could tea-stain white yarn before crocheting with it but that seems like a lot of extra work.
The biggest mistake people make is not stuffing firmly enough especially in the top dome part. The skull should feel solid and hold its shape when you squeeze it. If it’s too soft it’ll collapse and look sad.
Another mistake is making the eye sockets too small or too shallow. They need to be noticeable indents otherwise it just looks like a white ball with a face drawn on. Really work those decreases and push the stuffing away from those areas.
You could also make a skull with a moveable jaw by crocheting the jaw as a separate piece and attaching it with a button joint or just sewing it on loosely so it can move a bit but that’s getting into more advanced territory and honestly seems unnecessary for a simple decoration.
For kids you could make the skull more cartoonish by using bigger eyes maybe with white French knots for eye shine and a goofy smile instead of realistic teeth. I made one like this for my niece’s younger brother and used pink yarn for some reason? He loved it though so whatever works.
The pattern isn’t like officially written down anywhere this is just how I figured out how to do it by looking at pictures of skulls and messing around. There are probably official patterns online if you want something more structured but honestly the basic sphere with eye socket decreases is pretty much it.
If you’re making multiples I recommend doing all the base skulls first before you add faces because that’s the boring repetitive part and you can just power through it. Then do all the face details at once which is the fun creative part where you can make each one look slightly different.
Storage-wise these don’t really pack flat so they take up more space than like flat decorations. I keep mine in a cardboard box in the closet with my other Halloween stuff. They hold up pretty well year to year as long as you’re not throwing them around or letting pets chew on them.
My dog did manage to grab one once and it got a bit slobbery and stretched out but I just washed it and reshaped it and it was mostly fine. Caron Simply Soft holds up okay in the wash on gentle cycle in a lingerie bag.
You could technically make this pattern work for other holidays too like… I don’t know, Christmas skulls? That seems weird but I guess if you used red and green yarn or added a santa hat. Actually a skull in a santa hat sounds kind of funny maybe I’ll try that.
The other thing that was annoying about making these is that white yarn shows every single bit of dirt and oil from your hands. I had to wash my hands like constantly while working on them otherwise they’d start looking dingy. Maybe that matters less if you’re going for an aged bone look but for bright white skulls it’s definitely a thing.
Tension matters more than usual with amigurumi because you don’t want gaps between stitches where the stuffing shows through. I crochet pretty tight naturally but if you’re a loose crocheter you might want to go down a hook size. I used a 5mm hook with worsted weight yarn which is pretty standard.
Some people use a 4.5mm or even 4mm for tighter fabric with the same yarn weight. Just test it and see if you can see through the fabric when you stretch it. If you can see through it your stuffing will poke through and it’ll look messy.
You could stuff these with other things besides polyfil like… wool roving would work, or fabric scraps, or plastic pellets if you want them to have some weight. I’ve never tried that but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.
Oh and if you want to make a really big skull you’ll need to switch to a bigger yarn and hook. I made one with Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick and Quick on a 9mm hook and it was like the size of a actual human skull maybe slightly smaller. Used way more stuffing than I expected though so plan for that.
The giant one I made in Spring 2022 when I was stuck at home with covid and needed something to do. It turned out kind of lumpy because I was feeling too crappy to really focus on even tension but whatever it still looked like a skull. I gave it to my friend who collects weird stuff and she put it on her bookshelf.
For a more advanced version you could try adding cracks or damage to the skull by embroidering lines in gray or brown thread. Or add texture by doing some surface crochet in certain areas to make it look like bone plates or whatever. I haven’t tried this but I’ve seen pictures and it looks cool if you want to put in the extra time.
If you’re selling these at craft fairs or online they go over pretty well in October obviously. I sold a few on Etsy one year just to see if people would buy them and they did. Priced them at like $15 each which probably wasn’t enough considering the time but I wasn’t trying to make a business out of it just clearing out my overflow.
You could also use this same basic technique to make other skull types like animal skulls. A cat skull would have a different shape with a shorter snout area but the basic sphere with strategic decreases concept still applies. Might have to add ear bone areas or whatever though.
The nice thing about skulls is they’re pretty forgiving as a subject. Like everyone knows roughly what a skull looks like but there’s a lot of variation in actual skulls so if yours is a bit wonky it still reads as skull. Unlike if you’re trying to crochet a specific character or something where it needs to be exact.
I usually make these while watching TV or listening to podcasts because the stitching is pretty mindless after the first few. The face detail part requires more attention but the body of the skull is just rounds and rounds of single crochet mostly.
