Sushi Set Free Crochet Pattern

Sushi is one of my favorite foods, so I decided to create a free pattern for a cute and easy crochet sushi set on my blog!

Keep reading for the inspiration, the great yarn I chose, and the design, or scroll on down to the free pattern. If you’re in a hurry, grab the ad-free, inexpensive, and printable PDF here to take it with you offline.

The Inspiration

I’ve been wanting to try crochet food for a little while, and recently I’ve been craving sushi (honestly, when am I not craving sushi), so I decided to give this a try! I had so much fun coming up with what fillings I wanted in my easy crochet sushi, and the best part is both of the sushi are completely customizableI decided to make all of the sushi fairly life-sized, and found that the white stitches on the maki roll resembled rice surprisingly closely. They all look so life-like I believe that they would make great home decor pieces for a dining room or kitchen!

Stash-Buster Project

One of the best parts of this project is that it takes very little yarn to create a whole set of easy crochet sushi. White and black are the absolute basics, but after that, what kind of filling you decide to add is all dependent on your whimsy (or which colors of yarn you need to get rid of!). Also, since each sushi piece takes so little yarn, it’s possible to make as many or as few as you want, all depending on how much yarn you have left in that ball stuck at the bottom of your stash.

Once again, the type of yarn used for the sushi filling and nigiri fish piece are entirely dependent on you. I decided to make an avocado slice, carrot piece, and tuna fish for the maki roll, and used orange to imitate salmon to go on top of the rice ball for the nigiri. (For clarification on what different kinds of sushi are called, click here! Don’t worry, I had to Google it too!) Other options I had in mind were creating cucumber slices or imitation crab meat with green and pink yarn, or even eel, shrimp, or other fillings. You could even make a California roll by keeping the yarn white on the outside to emulate the look of a rice wrapping!

Yarn and Substitution

I chose Schachenmayr Catania sport weight yarn for my sushi set because of its thinness and ease of use for smaller crochet items. For the filling, I used Lion Brand Feels Like Butta in the Dusty Pink colorway to get a little more texture on the tuna. The thicker chenille construction makes it stand out a little more and helps differentiate it from the other fillings!

A note on yarn substitution: there is a lot of variation between brands of yarn that are categorized as sport weight. The best way to compare skeins from different brands, fiber contents, and origins, is to look at the yardage per gram. This can be found on the yarn label on any ball or skein of yarn.

When blending yarns within one project, try to make sure that two given balls of yarn differ no more than 0.5 yards per gram from each other and that the gauge is similar. For this project it only really matters for the white and black colored yarn, since the filling is just embroidered on top separately.

The Pattern: Easy Crochet Sushi

• If you’re in a hurry and need to take this offline, grab the ad-free, inexpensive, printable PDF here!
• Pin this pattern to your Pinterest boards for later here!

Description

This easy crochet sushi set is a fun project to use as home decor or play food for kids. It’s fully customizable and a great stash buster—perfect for a creative day off. Follow along the step-by-step pattern to make this cute project with beginner stitches and construction.

Yarn

• Schachenmayr Catania
  • Sport weight yarn in white, black, light green, dark green, and orange
• Lion Brand Feels Like Butta
  • Worsted weight in Dusty Pink

Notions

• Size E (3.5 mm) crochet hook
• 6 mm safety eyes or black embroidery thread
• pink embroidery thread
• tapestry needle
• polyester fiberfill
• stitch markers (optional)

Abbreviations (US):

• Sc: Single crochet
• Ch: Chain
• Sl st: Slip stitch
• Yo: Yarn over
• Hdc: Half double crochet
• Dc: Double crochet
• Inc: Increase
• Dec: Decrease
• Sts: Stitches
• FO: Fasten off
• (…) x: Repeat stitches within parentheses … times
• Sk: Skip one stitch
• FSC: Foundation single crochet (tutorial here)

Technical Notes:

• Crochet in joined rounds
• When filling with polyester stuffing, pull apart each large chunk into many smaller chunks. This ensures an even distribution of firmness.
• To avoid large holes in the crochet fabric, increase tension until the holes cannot be seen, or choose a crochet hook a size down.

Maki Roll: (begin with white yarn and work in joined rounds. If you’re unclear on how to do this, check out a video tutorial here.)

• R1: sc 4 in MR, slst (4 sts)
• R2: ch1, inc x4, slst (8 sts)
• R3: ch1, inc x8, slst (16 sts)
• R4: ch1, inc x16, slst (32 sts)
• Switch to black yarn.
• R5-9 (5 rounds): ch1, sc all around, slst (32 sts) Switch back to white yarn.
• R10: ch1, dec x32, slst (16 sts) R11: ch1, dec x16, slst (8 sts) R12: ch1, dec x8, slst (4 sts) FO and weave in end.

Using a small tapestry needle and various colors of yarn, embroidery sushi pieces onto one face of the maki roll. To make avocado, I used dark green yarn for the outside and light green for the inside, creating a pie wedge shape. The carrot and tuna fish were both rectangle shapes.

Tips:

1. To embroider shapes more easily, outline the shape first and then fill it in.
2. For each sushi piece, embroider in the same direction for continuity. That way, each piece looks like its own entity. If you examine the picture above carefully, you can see that in the carrot piece, all my strokes are going lengthwise, and the same for the tuna piece. This ensures that the embroidery does not look messy!

Nigiri Rice Base : (use white yarn and work in spiral rounds)

• R1: ch6, sc10 all around (beginning from 2nd chain. This is called crocheting around a foundation stitch. If it’s confusing, check out a more in-depth tutorial here!) (10 sts) R2: inc x10 (20 sts)
• R3-5 (3 rounds): sc all around x3 (20 sts)
• R6: dec x10 (10 sts)
• R5: dec x5 (5 sts)
• Cut yarn and pull yarn through all 5 stitches and draw it tight (like a drawstring bag). FO.

Nigiri Salmon Piece: (use orange yarn. If you want to swap this part out with any other kind of fish, simply substitute yarn for a different color)

• R1: FSC6, ch1, turn (6 sts)
• R2-4 (3 rows): sc6, ch1, turn (6 sts)
• FO, leaving a long tail.

Sew the nigiri piece to the rice base using the long tail.

Your sushi set is all done! I hope you enjoyed crocheting them and found the pattern helpful. If you’re excited for another crochet project, check out my most recent amigurumi little prince and bunny!