How to crochet flat circles and basic shapes (ami design!)

Do you get stuck trying to figure out how to crochet a flat circle? Do you wonder what actually makes a circle more or less rounded, pointy, or flat? Are you learning how to design spheres and circles?

Circles are one of the most basic shapes that are used in amigurumi, because they form the bases of spheres, bodies, legs, arms, and all kinds of 3D pieces.

I’ve also made a much longer guide with almost every single basic shape I use in amigurumi design, including spheres, corkscrews, hemispheres, squares, and more!

The most important characteristic of a crochet circle, is how many stitches you increase by each round. This is also called the multiple, because it defines how many times you work an increase each round.

from left to right, multiples of 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.

If you look at the photo above, you can see that the higher the multiple, the flatter (and larger) the piece is. Also, the larger the multiple, the bigger the hole is going to be in the center.

I’ve crocheted the same circle with 5 different multiples, and I’ll go over below how to make them and why you would want to use each of them.

You can grab a free printable for all of these patterns at the sign up below:

More like this:

Multiples of 4: Conical

  • Round 1: 4 sc in MR (4 sts)
  • Round 2: inc x4 (8 sts)
  • Round 3: (sc, inc) x4 (12 sts)
  • Round 4: (2 sc, inc) x4 (16 sts)
  • Round 5: (3 sc, inc) x4 (20 sts)
  • Finish off.

This circle is extremely conical and small, because it starts with only 4 stitches in the round. This shape can be useful for making spikes or other geometric shapes.

Multiples of 5: Wide cone

  • Round 1: 5 sc in MR (5 sts)
  • Round 2: inc x5 (10 sts)
  • Round 3: (sc, inc) x5 (15 sts)
  • Round 4: (2 sc, inc) x5 (20 sts)
  • Round 5: (3 sc, inc) x5 (25 sts)
  • Finish off.

A circle made with multiples of five is a little bit wider and less cone shaped. This could be useful if you wanted to make some subtle spikes, or bumps.

However, I have a strong aversion to using multiples of 5 when I design amigurumi, because odd numbers tend to be much harder to divide.

For instance, if I wanted to change the rate at which I was increasing, my only options would be to increase by 10 stitches per round, which is double the rate (very sharp increase).

If you’re looking for other types of crochet shapes, check out my blog post and downloadable PDF cheat-sheet below!

I created an entire guide on how to crochet basic shapes and more in this blog post!

If you want a cheat sheet printable with all of the written patterns for these shapes, as well as instructions on how to modify them, sign up below!

Multiples of 6: Round

  • Round 1: 6 sc in MR (6 sts)
  • Round 2: inc x6 (12 sts)
  • Round 3: (sc, inc) x6 (18 sts)
  • Round 4: (2 sc, inc) x6 (24 sts)
  • Round 5: (3 sc, inc) x6 (30 sts)
  • Finish off.

This circle, with a multiple of 6, is almost perfectly round and is the ideal circle to use to create spheres, rounded limbs, or anything that needs to have a pleasant curve and not pointed.

In addition to the shape being ideal for spherical amigurumi pieces, it is also extremely easy to use it to shape amigurumi (change the rate at which it increases or decreases).

I mentioned before that the circle with a 5 multiple is difficult to work with. By contrast, this circle, which increases by 6 stitches per round, is exceptionally easy to work with because 6 is an easily divisible number.

This means that if I wanted to increase slightly faster, I could change the multiple to 8, or I could increase more slowly and change the multiple to 4 or even 2.

These are all ways to be able to affect the curve of the sphere/circle, and techniques that I use all the time to generate an ideal shape.

Because of its ease of use, a circle with a 6 multiple is almost the standard for amigurumi pieces, except for giant ones with blanket yarn (more on that later).

Additionally, although circles with a 6 multiple are really useful for making spheres and are naturally round, they can also be flattened to form a pseudo flat circle in a pinch because yarn is fairly flexible.

For this reason, I don’t often use circles with different multiples, even if I need the bottom of something to be flat.

Multiples of 7: Fairly flat

  • Round 1: 7 sc in MR (7 sts)
  • Round 2: inc x7 (14 sts)
  • Round 3: (sc, inc) x7 (21 sts)
  • Round 4: (2 sc, inc) x7 (28 sts)
  • Round 5: (3 sc, inc) x7 (35 sts)
  • Finish off.

This circle with a 7 multiple is much flatter than the one with a 6 multiple. It lies completely flat and can be used for an even, level surface.

I don’t like using circles with a 7 multiple because of the same reason as the 5 multiple — odd/prime numbers are hard to divide and manipulate.

However, this is probably the perfect flat circle, so if you’re just making something that needs circles, like appliqué, this would do the trick!

Multiples of 8: Completely flat

  • Round 1: 8 sc in MR (8 sts)
  • Round 2: inc x8 (16 sts)
  • Round 3: (sc, inc) x8 (24 sts)
  • Round 4: (2 sc, inc) x8 (32 sts)
  • Round 5: (3 sc, inc) x8 (40 sts)
  • Finish off.

This circle with an 8 multiple is also completely flat. It’s ever so slightly less perfect than the 7 multiple circle, and if you add many more rounds the 8 multiple circle can sometimes develop wrinkles.

However, it’s my preference to use this circle instead of the 7 circle when I need something perfectly flat, because pieces with total stitch counts in a multiple of 8 are much easier to work with.

I also use this circle as the “round circle” when I’m working with jumbo velvet or blanket yarn. This is because when working with jumbo velvet yarn, the 6 multiple circle actually is very pointy, and the 8 multiple one looks much more like the 6 multiple circle.

I discuss this difference in more detail in my blog post on resizing amigurumi, so check out that blog post for more information.