Today we will crochet a little pocket baby rat with you!

It will be a great New Year souvenir, and if you hang it by the tail, it can be a keychain that protects you all over the year 2020!

A bit of yarn, 1 hour of your time and minimum of skills in crocheting. Oh, I love it in a simple, even a little primitive form, to achieve the desired proportion and similarity. I don't know how it is actually achieved, perhaps this and there is magic!

What do we need:

1. Yarn of any gray or white color, about 8 grams. I had 4 grams of souffle (Semenovskaya) and 4 grams of an unknown small fluffy ball.

2. Suitable hook. I have 5.

3. Any filler (a handful).

4. Two black small beads, black thread and needle for sewing.

5. A large needle for the rest of the manipulation.

6. Marking ring.

We will crochet with single crochets (SC) without cutting the thread in the process. That's it, all the details of the toy from start to finish we crochet in a single thread (in my case a doubled one).

1 row. Make 6 SCs in a ring. Pull the thread.

2 row. Crochet 6 SCs again, forming a sharp rat muzzle.

3 row. Make 1 SC + widening, and repeat this 3 times. We should get 9 loops in a row.

4 row. Crochet 2 SCs + widening, and repeat this 3 times. We should get 12 loops in a row.

5 row. Repeat the same manipulation as in the 4th row, only 4 times. And now we have 16 loops.

6 row. We begin to form the body. Crochet 3 widening stitches in a row and 13 SCs. We have 19 loops in a row.

7 row. Crochet 1 widening stitch and 1 SC, repeat this 3 times, and then crochet another 13 SCs. 22 loops in a row.

8 row. Crochet 4 SCs, 1 widening stitch and another 17 SCs. 23 loops in a row. The place where we made the widening is marked with a pin as the central axis of our rat.

9-12 rows. We finish in a circle of 23 SCs in each row.

13 row. We begin to reduce. Make 1 reducing stitch, 5 SCs, again 1 reducing stitch and 5 SCs, and 1 more reducing stitch and 7 SCs. 20 loops in a row.

14 row. Crochet 2 SCs and 1 reducing stitch. Repeat 5 times. 15 loops in a row. It's time to fill the rat with holofiber.

15 row is the latest. Crochet 1 SC and 1 reducing stitch. Repeat 5 times. 10 loops in a row.

16. Next, depending on the softness of the yarn, continue to reduce until completely closed (adding more filler, if necessary), or complete and later pull the remaining hole with a needle. The crocheting is finished. Next, we will work only with a needle.

17. Now we leave the tail about the length of your outstretched hand. This will be enough for the legs, ears and tail.

18. Leave the tail and immediately sew eyes and make a nose. We plan eyes approximately between 2 and 3 rows, focusing on our axis. Enter the needle with a black thread in the place where the spout will be.

19. Sew the eyes and remove the needle in the same place where injected.

20. We embroider the spout with a simple French knot. The number of turns of thread around the needle depends on the thickness of the thread. I have a quite thin thread, because it took me 7 turns to get the right size of the spout. We deduce the needle on the belly and entangle our thread so that the black thread was not noticeable.

21. Put the main tail thread in our big needle. On the last row between the loops, skip the thread and pull the hole (this is if you do not bring a number of cuts to full closure).

22. We turn the rat on the back and outline the pins of the place where the legs will be.

23. We deduce the thread in the place of the back foot.

24. The foot we do the same with the help of a French knot. This time I only need 3-4 turns of thread around the needle. And so we embroider our paws one by one.

25. After forming the last nodule of our front foot, we immediately withdraw the needle to the place where the left ear will be. Between about 6 and 7 near symmetrically with respect to our axis. There will be about 7 loops between the ears.

26. Making a small stitch close to the point of withdrawal of the needle we form a loop. This will be our ear. Fasten the stitch and bring the thread to the second eye.

27. Repeat the same thing and derive our thread in the tail.

28. That's what our rat looks like. Left to do only the tail.

29. Take the hook (can be thinner), and hooked thread for any adjacent loop begin to crochet chain stitches. And so to the end of the thread. I have this roughly 9-10 stitches. Usually I crochet to zero, there is only a small tail of about 1 cm. I did not touch it. With a tail it looks more natural.

Well, that's such a cute rat I did!

Thank you all for your attention!

I hope that my little tutorial will help someone with the choice of souvenirs for the upcoming holidays. And you will link such an invasion to your colleagues and friends!

If you liked this tutorial, please do not forget to press the "Like" button (thumbs up). I will be very pleased with your attention. Thanks!