Free Amigurumi Pattern

Crochet Black Cat Plushie: The Cuddly Chenille Pattern

🧶 4 mm black chenille⏱️ 4 to 6 hours🪝 4 mm and 3 mm hooks📊 32 rounds, no colour changes📏 About 30 cm tall

Your Starting Point

You have seen the photo. A small black cat with a fat round head, arms that flop, and a scarf knotted at the throat. It sits on someone else’s shelf and looks like it was always meant to be there.

The gap between that photo and your hook can feel wide. It is not. This cat is six shapes: two hands, two legs, one long tube that becomes body and head in a single piece, and two ears. Everything else is felt, glue, and about twenty minutes of pinning things on and taking them off again.

Chenille yarn does most of the visual work. It hides uneven tension, it hides the seams where the arms go in, and it turns an ordinary amigurumi into something people pick up without asking. In black it reads as velvet.

Set aside an evening. Keep a stitch marker in the first stitch of every round. That is the whole trick.

Section 1 · Start Here

What You Are Making

A crochet black cat plushie is an amigurumi toy worked in continuous spiral rounds of single crochet, with the body and head made as one unbroken piece and the limbs crocheted straight into the body as you go. It stands about 30 cm tall in 4 mm chenille yarn and takes four to six hours.

Nothing here is worked flat except the scarf. There is no colour change, no sewing of a head onto a neck, and no shaping you cannot undo by pulling the yarn back out.

The six stages of the crochet black cat plushie, from the hands through to the finished face

The anatomy of this cat

Two hands — 9-stitch tubes, stuffed lightly so the arms hang instead of sticking out
Two legs — 14-stitch tubes joined by a chain-2 bridge to make one 32-stitch body round
Body and head — one continuous spiral, narrowing at the waist and flaring again for the head
Two ears — small cones flattened and sewn between rounds 24 and 29
The face — crocheted white discs, felt pupils, a felt nose and four chain whiskers
The scarf — one row of double crochet, tied in a loose knot

Why this one suits a beginner

Most cat patterns ask you to make a head, make a body, and then sew the two together so the head sits straight. That seam is where beginner projects go wrong. Here the neck is just a narrow round in the middle of a tube, so the head cannot lean.

The arms are the same idea. Instead of sewing them on afterwards and hoping they match, you hook through the body and the flattened hand at the same time, and the round closes over the join.

If you have made a small shaped piece like the heart trinket dish, you already have every stitch this needs.

Section 2 · Supplies

What You Need Before You Start

Yarn thickness decides the size of your cat more than anything else. Everything else on this list is standard amigurumi kit.

Item	What to use	Why it matters
Main yarn	Black chenille, roughly 4 mm thick, about 200 g	Gives the velvet surface and hides uneven stitches
Accent yarn	White cotton or acrylic, plus a little brown	White for the eye discs, brown for the scarf
Hooks	4 mm for the body, 3 mm for the eyes	The smaller hook keeps the eye discs flat and dense
Felt	Black, brown and yellow scraps	Pupils, nose, and the triangles inside the ears
Stuffing	Polyester fibrefill, about 120 g	Firm in the head and legs, loose in the arms
Notions	Darning needle, stitch marker, fabric glue, scissors	A stitch marker is not optional in spiral rounds

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Choosing the yarn

Chenille sold for baby blankets is usually close to 4 mm. If the label gives you a weight category instead of a thickness, you want bulky — category 5 on the Craft Yarn Council yarn weight system. Chunky velvet yarns marketed for arm knitting are too thick and will fight the 4 mm hook.

Chenille has one bad habit. It worms: a loop works itself loose and pops out of the fabric surface. Work tighter than feels natural, and if a worm appears, tug the neighbouring stitches rather than pulling the loop itself.

Cotton works too and is easier to unravel while you learn, but the finished cat will be noticeably smaller and the surface will show every stitch. Neither is wrong. They are different toys.

Section 3 · Stitch Guide

Abbreviations and the One New Technique

This pattern uses US crochet terms throughout. Keep this table open in another tab while you work through the rounds.

Short	Means	Short	Means
ch	chain	dc	double crochet
mr	magic ring	hdc	half double crochet
st / sts	stitch / stitches	sl st	slip stitch
R	round or row	BLO	back loops only
sc	single crochet	FLO	front loops only
inc	increase — 2 sc in one stitch	×	repeat that many times
dec	decrease — 2 stitches worked together	[ ]	stitch count at the end of the round

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US and UK terms are not the same. A US single crochet is a UK double crochet. If your stitches are coming out twice as tall as the photos, you are reading the abbreviations in UK terms.

The magic ring

Every piece in this pattern starts the same way. You wrap the yarn around two fingers, work all the stitches of round one into that loop, and then pull the tail to shut the hole completely. It is the difference between a closed paw and a paw with a gap in the middle.

Six single crochet worked into a magic ring for the crochet black cat plushie

Work all six stitches first. Pull the tail second. If you tighten as you go, there is no room left for the last stitch and the ring twists.

Magic rings loosen over time in chenille. After you close one, give the tail a second firm pull and weave it through the ring a second time before you carry on.

Marking your rounds

Everything except the eye discs is worked in a continuous spiral — no slip stitch, no chain, no seam. That means there is nothing to tell you where a round ends. Slide a marker into the first stitch of each round and move it up as you pass it. In black chenille you will not find your place again without one.

Section 4 · Sizing

How Big Yours Will Be

Every crochet black cat plushie uses the same stitch counts. The yarn is what changes the finished size. Work a quick check before you commit to 200 g of anything.

Make one leg. Rounds 1 to 4 take about ten minutes.
Lay it flat and measure across. A 14-stitch round in 4 mm chenille sits at roughly 5.5 cm wide.
Multiply by five and a half. That is roughly your finished height, ears included.
Adjust before you go further. Too small, go up a hook size or hold a second strand alongside. Too big, drop to 3.5 mm.

Yarn	Hook	Finished height	Feels like
4 mm chenille	4 mm	28–32 cm	A proper cuddle-sized toy
Bulky acrylic	4.5 mm	24–27 cm	Firmer, holds its shape better
Worsted / aran	3.5 mm	18–21 cm	Shelf-sized, keeps more detail
DK cotton	3 mm	14–16 cm	Pocket cat, fiddly to stuff

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Gauge is a guide, not a rule. Nothing here needs to fit a body, so a cat that comes out 4 cm short is not a failed cat. The only measurement that matters is that the two legs match each other.

Section 5 · The Pattern

Step-by-Step Instructions

Part 1 · The hands (make 2)

Black chenille, 4 mm hook. These are small tubes that get flattened and crocheted into the body later, so the top edge stays open and flat rather than gathered.

R1: 6 sc in a magic ring. Pull the tail closed. [6]
R2: (1 sc, inc) ×3 [9]
R3 to R8: 1 sc in each st around, six rounds. [9]
Stuff lightly. Push in a pinch of fibrefill with the blunt end of your hook — enough to round the paw, not enough to firm it up.
Flatten the opening so four stitches line up against four stitches, with the spare stitch at the fold.
Work 4 sc across through both layers to seal the top. Fasten off and weave in the end. [4 along the flat edge]

Do not firm-stuff the hands. Packed hands make arms that stick straight out sideways. A soft hand lets the arm drop against the body, which is most of what makes the finished cat look cuddly rather than startled.

Part 2 · The legs and the join

Two identical tubes, joined into one round. This is the only genuinely fiddly moment in the pattern, and it lasts about five minutes.

R1: 7 sc in a magic ring. [7]
R2: inc in every st. [14]
R3 to R4: 1 sc in each st around, two rounds. [14]
Leg 1: fasten off, leaving a short tail. Set it aside.
Leg 2: do not fasten off. Keep the loop live on your hook.

Joining two crochet legs with a chain 2 bridge to start the black cat plushie body

Body R1, part one: from the live loop on Leg 2, ch 2.
Part two: insert your hook into any stitch of Leg 1 and work 14 sc all the way around it.
Part three: work 2 sc into the chain-2 space. This is the front of the crotch.
Part four: work 14 sc around Leg 2.
Part five: work 2 sc into the far side of the same chain-2. The round closes. [32]

Before you join: hold both legs side by side with the yarn tails pointing the same way. If one is turned around, that foot will point backwards for the rest of the cat’s life.

Part 3 · Shaping the torso

Now you are working one continuous spiral. Rounds 2 to 8 build height, and rounds 9 to 12 pull the waist in so the head has something to sit on.

Stitch count chart for the crochet cat plushie torso from round 1 to round 13

R2: (15 sc, inc) ×2 [34]
R3 to R8: 1 sc in each st around, six rounds. [34]
R9: (15 sc, dec) ×2 [32]
R10: (6 sc, dec) ×4 [28]

Stuff now. Fill both legs firmly — they carry the whole cat — then pack the lower body. Once you pass round 11 the opening is too narrow to reach the feet properly.

R11: (5 sc, dec) ×4 [24]
R12: (4 sc, dec) ×4 [20]

Part 4 · Attaching the arms

Round 13 is where it stops being a tube and starts being a cat. You crochet through the body and the flattened hand at the same time, so there is no seam to sew afterwards.

Attaching the crochet cat plushie arms into round 13 of the body

R13, stitches 1 to 3: 3 sc into the body as normal.
Stitches 4 to 7: hold the first hand against the body, flat edge lined up with the round. Push the hook through a body stitch and a hand stitch together, yarn over, pull through both, finish the sc. Repeat four times.
Stitches 8 to 13: 6 sc into the body.
Stitches 14 to 17: attach the second hand the same way, 4 sc through both layers.
Stitches 18 to 20: 3 sc into the body. The round is closed. [20]

Check before you commit. Pin both hands on and look at the cat straight on. Arms set too far forward make it look like it is reaching for something. Three stitches in from centre-back is the sweet spot.

Part 5 · The head

From a 20-stitch neck to a 48-stitch head in two rounds. It flares fast and it looks wrong for about a minute, then it looks like a head.

R14: inc in every st. [40]
R15: (4 sc, inc) ×8 [48]
R16 to R25: 1 sc in each st around, ten rounds. [48]

Ten identical rounds is where people lose count. Move your marker every single round, and if you put the project down mid-round, leave the hook in the work rather than trusting your memory.

R26: (6 sc, dec) ×6 [42]
R27: (5 sc, dec) ×6 [36]
R28: (4 sc, dec) ×6 [30]

Stuff the head hard. Harder than feels sensible. A firm head keeps its shape for years; a soft one settles into a pear within a week. Keep adding fibrefill until the surface no longer dimples under a thumb.

R29: (3 sc, dec) ×6 [24]
R30: (2 sc, dec) ×6 [18]
R31: (1 sc, dec) ×6 [12]
R32: dec ×6 [6]
Close: cut the yarn leaving 20 cm. Thread it on a darning needle, run it through the front loop of each of the last 6 stitches, pull tight, and bury the tail deep inside the head.

Part 6 · The ears (make 2)

R1: 6 sc in a magic ring. [6]
R2: inc ×6 [12]
R3: 1 sc in each st around. [12]
R4: (2 sc, inc) ×4 [16]
R5 to R6: 1 sc in each st around, two rounds. [16]
Close: do not stuff. Flatten the opening and work 8 sc across through both layers. Fasten off leaving a 30 cm tail for sewing. [8]

Part 7 · The face

Make the eye discs in white cotton or acrylic with the 3 mm hook. These are the only pieces worked in joined rounds rather than a spiral, which keeps them flat.

R1: 7 sc in a magic ring, sl st to the first sc. [7]
R2: ch 1, inc ×7, sl st to join. [14]
R3: ch 1, (1 sc, inc) ×7, sl st to join. Fasten off and weave in the ends at the back. [21]

Where to place the ears, eyes and whiskers on the crochet black cat plushie

Ears: pin them across rounds 24 to 29, roughly a third of the way in from each side. Sew all the way round the flattened edge with the long tail.
Inner ears: cut two small triangles of yellow felt and glue one inside each ear.
Eyes: glue the white discs between rounds 14 and 22, about four stitches apart. Let the glue set before the next step.
Pupils: cut two black felt circles, roughly a third of the disc width, and glue them slightly high and slightly inward. That off-centre placement is what makes the face read as friendly.
Nose: a small brown felt oval, centred just below the eyes.
Whiskers: with black yarn and the 4 mm hook, hook into the face beside the eye and chain 10. Cut, pull the end through, knot. Repeat on the other side, then add a lower pair with chains of 8.

Pin everything before you glue anything. Put the pieces on, walk away, come back and look at the cat from across the room. Faces read differently at arm’s length than they do at 20 cm.

Part 8 · The scarf

Chain in brown yarn until the chain measures about 38 cm, then add 2 more.
Row 1: 1 dc in the third ch from the hook, then 1 dc in each ch to the end.
Fasten off and weave in both ends.
Tie it in a loose single knot at the throat, and pull the knot slightly to one side.

Section 6 · Finishing

Troubleshooting, Variations and Care

Finished crochet black cat plushie with every part labelled

When your crochet black cat plushie looks wrong

What you are seeing	What caused it	What to do
Legs splay and the cat topples	Legs under-stuffed	Unpick to round 10, pack the legs properly, rework
Head leans to one side	Uneven stuffing at the neck	Push fibrefill into the low side through the top opening
Gaps between stitches	Tension too loose for chenille	Drop half a hook size and start again — chenille will not tighten later
Loops popping out of the surface	Chenille worming	Tug the two neighbouring stitches, never the loop itself
Arms stick out sideways	Hands stuffed too firm	Pull some fibrefill back out through the flattened edge
Head came out too big	Loose tension on rounds 16–25	Stuff it less and let it sit into the neck a little
Lost your place in the spiral	No stitch marker	Count from the last increase round and re-mark

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Ways to change it

A grey cat — same pattern, grey chenille, and green felt behind the pupils
A sleepy cat — skip the white discs and embroider two curved closed eyes in cream yarn instead
A keyring cat — work every piece in DK cotton on a 2.5 mm hook and thread a split ring through the top of the head
A longer tail — chain 20, work 19 sc back along the chain, and sew it to the lower back
A matching set — the same construction in cream with brown ears makes a convincing bear

How long each part takes

Part	Rounds	Roughly
Two hands	R1–R8 each	40 minutes
Two legs and the join	R1–R4 each, then body R1	45 minutes
Torso and arms	R2–R13	1 hour
Head	R14–R32	1 hour 30
Ears and eyes	short pieces	30 minutes
Face, scarf and finishing	—	45 minutes

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Looking after it

Situation	What to do
Everyday dust	Lint roller, or a soft brush along the pile
A mark or spill	Spot clean with cool water and a drop of wool wash, then air dry
A full wash	Hand wash cold inside a pillowcase. Never a machine — the felt pieces will lift
Flattened pile	Steam from a distance, then brush the nap back up with a soft toothbrush
A child under three	Embroider the face instead of using felt and glue

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If it is a gift, a scarf in the recipient’s colours takes ten minutes and turns a generic plushie into something clearly made for them. The same trick works on the crochet bow pattern if you want a small matching extra.

Crochet Black Cat Plushie FAQ

Can I use ordinary acrylic yarn instead of chenille?

Yes, and the pattern works exactly as written. Standard worsted acrylic is thinner than 4 mm chenille, so your cat will finish around 18 to 21 cm instead of 30 cm. To keep the full size, either hold two strands together or choose a bulky category 5 yarn.

Why are my legs wobbly?

Almost always under-stuffing. The legs carry the whole weight of the cat, so they need to be packed firmly before you close the body past round 11. If you want a cat that can be posed rather than just sat down, run a pipe cleaner up the inside of each leg before stuffing.

How do I hide the yarn tails in black chenille?

Leave tails of at least 15 cm. Thread each one on a darning needle, take it deep into the stuffing, change direction twice inside the body, then bring it out and snip flush. Chenille closes over the exit hole on its own.

Can I make this cat in another colour?

Any colour works, because there are no colour changes to manage. Grey with green eyes, cream with brown ears, or a soft pink all use the same stitch counts. Save multi-colour versions for later — colour changes in chenille are unforgiving.

My head came out too big for the body. What happened?

Tension drifted looser over the ten straight rounds of the head, which is very common when the rounds stop changing. You can rescue it by stuffing the head more lightly so it settles into the neck. Next time, check your stitch width at round 20 against round 16.

Is this pattern safe for a baby or toddler?

Not as written. The felt pupils, felt nose and glued inner ears can be pulled off and swallowed. For a child under three, embroider the whole face in yarn instead, skip the glue completely, and sew the scarf down rather than knotting it.

How much yarn does one cat use?

About 200 g of 4 mm chenille for the body, plus small amounts of white and brown for the eyes and scarf. A single 200 g cone is usually enough with a little left over, but buy two if your chenille is on the thick side of 4 mm.

Do I need to close each round with a slip stitch?

No. Everything except the two eye discs is worked as a continuous spiral, which is what keeps the surface seamless. Only the eye discs are joined with a slip stitch at the end of each round, because they need to lie flat rather than curve.

One Evening, One Cat

Your crochet black cat plushie is now a thing on your own shelf, and it has whatever small crookedness your hands gave it. That is the part shop-bought toys never have.

The skills underneath it — magic ring, increase, decrease, joining pieces as you work rather than sewing them on afterwards — are the whole foundation of amigurumi. Every animal you make after this one is a variation on the shapes you just finished.

Before you call it done

Tug each arm and leg firmly — they should not shift
Check every tail is buried inside, not tucked under a stitch
Squeeze the head and add more stuffing if it dimples
Look at the face from across the room and adjust the pupils if it looks blank
Knot the scarf slightly off-centre — dead centre always looks stiff

Made one? Make the set.

The same shapes in cream make a bear, and in grey a rabbit with longer ears.

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Crochet Black Cat Plushie: The Cuddly Chenille Pattern