How To Crochet A Simple Teddy Bear Sweater

When you buy the cutest 26 cm tall plaid bear to give as a Chanukah gift, but he just looks too cold, you decide to whip up a crocheted sweater for him! You end up totally winging it because you didn’t exactly plan ahead as one should, but the results are still cute as can be, and the winging it improvisations might help you! So introducing How To Crochet A Simple Teddy Bear Sweater which could work for a wide range of animals and dolls as well. And if you don’t know how to crochet, learn, it is so wonderful for creating small homemade add-ons to store bought gifts, and of course crocheted pouches for Chanukah gelt!

You’ll Need:

• I used two strands of non-mercerized 50g cotton. One strand green, one gold for collar, and two strands green for body of sweater.

• I used a size 0 steel crochet hook which is roughly a 2.35mm hook

• I purchased the sweater pattern from CrochetFairyToy on Etsy for $2.59, totally worth it only the result with my hook and yarn was way too big for my bear, so I had to make some adjustments to the pattern, which I’ll loosely explain below.

Adjustments/Add-Ons to Purchased Pattern

1. I crocheted collar as directed, and the first 8 rows of the body.
2. For rows 9, 10, 11, I decreased 4 times in each row.
3. The resulting arm hole was too large, so I closed it up with 4 single crochet stitches on the outside of the sweater, and then did a row of single crochet around the opening of the sleeve.
4. The results are an oversized bat-wing like sweater, which is cute and serves its purpose.
5. I made a simple cowel scarf to make the look really cozy, stay tuned for that!

Okay friends, so when you are crocheting simple clothes for little stuffed animals you don’t need perfection, but maybe plan ahead a bit more than I did. As you can see in the photo above, my decreases with the double crochet stitches are a bit too visible, hmm, so maybe it would be better to do those last rows in single crochet or hdc.

That’s it happy crocheting! Now maybe I’ll try the pattern with just one strand of the cotton, or some nicer mercerized cotton and see where that takes me?