Jumbo Turkey – Plush Crochet Turkey – Free Crochet Pattern

My Jumbo Turkey pattern is my newest jumbo velvet free crochet pattern!

Read on to learn more about my design process and inspiration, or scroll to the end to get the free pattern. If you’re in a hurry and need to take this pattern offline, grab the beautifully formatted, ad-free, PDF pattern from Etsy here.

The best Thanksgiving centerpiece ever!

If you’ve ever desired to have an overly plump, giant crochet turkey with magnificent and colorful tailfeathers, this is the place for you!

My jumbo turkey pattern is made with category 7 velvet yarn – I used a combination of Sweet Snuggles and Chenille Home (both by Michael’s). You can order them online (see links below in the Materials list).

This pattern is loosely based on my Chubby Chicken pattern but modified to work for jumbo velvet yarn. In case you didn’t know – most patterns designed for worsted weight yarn don’t translate well to jumbo velvet yarn, and there are a few things that I always adjust when adapting a pattern to jumbo yarn like Sweet Snuggles. You can read more about this in my article about resizing amigurumi!

I created this design around Thanksgiving time when I wanted to have a giant (and cuddly!) seasonal decor item. He turned out so cute and also gave me an excuse to use the 10.0 mm safety eyes that I’ve had forever but never used.

Read on for some tips on how to deal with jumbo velvet yarn!

Tips for working with velvet yarn!

If you’ve never worked with jumbo velvet yarn before, here are a few tips to get you going on your way. Generally, velvet yarn isn’t too big a step up from regular cotton or acrylic yarn, so it’s a good first “novelty” yarn for novices to try.

  • Velvet yarn, especially jumbo velvet yarn, sheds very easily when frogged. Because velvet/chenille yarn generally is made up of a lot of tiny bristles stuck onto a central string, if you frog it, the friction can easily lead to a lot of shedding and stray yarn pieces. The best solution to this is to try to avoid frogging, and also working in a place that can be easily cleaned.
  • Patterns designed for jumbo velvet yarn cannot be easily sized down to worsted weight yarn. This means that if you use worsted weight yarn for this pattern, your result may be different and it might not turn out well. For more information on how to resize amigurumi and how worsted weight yarn affects this pattern, check out this blog post!
  • If your jumbo turkey fabric is too loose and you can see the stuffing poking through, size down your crochet hook so that it’s tighter. If it’s too tight and the crochet stitches are warping or too stiff, size up your crochet hook to get that perfect balance. See my post here on how to stuff amigurumi and what to do if there are holes.

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The Pattern

  • If you want to take this pattern offline, grab the beautifully formatted, ad-free, PDF pattern from Etsy here!

Description

This jumbo turkey is pillow sized and works as an adorable accent cushion for a child’s room or an eccentric couch pillow! Using velvet makes this amigurumi even more plush, but you can make it palm sized by using sport or worsted weight yarn.

Yarn

Confused about materials? For all my personal recommendations of my most-used tools, yarns, and supplies, check out my favorites in this complete guide!

  • Chenille Home (Jumbo)
    • (2 skeins) Mustard (brown)
    • (<1 skein) Burgundy (dark red)
  • Sweet Snuggles (Jumbo)
    • (<1 skein) Yellow
    • (<1 skein) Coral (peach)

Notions

  • 5.5mm/US size I Clover Amour hook
  • 10.0mm safety eyes
  • fiberfill stuffing
  • tapestry needle
  • stitch markers

Abbreviations

  • BLO: back loop only
  • ch: chain
  • CC: contrast color
  • dec: decrease
  • hdc: half double crochet
  • inc: increase (work two single crochets in one stitch)
  • MC: main color
  • MR: magic ring
  • rnd: round
  • RS: right side
  • sc: single crochet
  • sk: skip
  • x sc: work x number of single crochets
  • sl st: slip stitch
  • st(s): stitch(es)
  • WS: wrong side
  • (x sts): total number of stitches for the round
  • (…) x: work all steps within parentheses x number of times

Technical Notes

  1. Crochet in continuous spiral rounds, unless specified otherwise. Use a stitch marker or piece of yarn to keep track of the last stitch in each round.
  2. Jumbo velvet yarn sheds very easily, so keep that in mind while working.
  3. When creating the magic ring at the beginning, pull the circle as tight as possible before working into it. Otherwise, sometimes the circle gets stuck and it’s difficult to cinch tight.
  4. If your amigurumi has gaps, size down your hook.
  5. When filling with polyester stuffing, pull apart each large chunk into many smaller chunks. This ensures an even distribution of firmness within the amigurumi.
  6. To make this amigurumi child safe, use black felt and hot glue for the eyes rather than safety eyes, which are not child-safe.

Color Coding

For this pattern, the MC is Mustard, CC1 is Yellow, CC2 is Burgundy, and CC3 is Coral.

Final Size

Approx. 9″ (23 cm) wide, 8″ (21 cm) tall, 12″ (31 cm) long

HEAD/BODY (in MC)

  • 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)
  • Round 6: (4 sc, inc) x8 (48 sts)
  • Round 7: (5 sc, inc) x8 (56 sts)
  • Round 8-13 (6 rnds): sc around (56 sts)
  • Place 10mm safety eyes between rounds 9 and 10, with 11 stitches in between.
  • Round 14: (6 sc, inc) x8 (64 sts)
  • Round 15-16 (2 rnds): sc around (64 sts) Round 17: (6 sc, dec) x8 (56 sts)
  • Round 18: (5 sc, dec) x8 (48 sts)
  • Round 19: (4 sc, dec) x8 (40 sts)
  • Round 20: (3 sc, dec) x8 (32 sts)
  • Round 21: (2 sc, dec) x8 (24 sts)
  • Stuff.
  • Round 22: (sc, dec) x8 (16 sts)
  • Round 23: dec x8 (8 sts)
  • Finish off and weave in end (fig. 1).

WINGS (in MC)

  • Round 1: 6 sc in MR (6 sts)
  • Round 2: (2 sc, inc) x2 (8 sts)
  • Round 3: (3 sc, inc) x2 (10 sts)
  • Round 4: (4 sc, inc) x2 (12 sts)
  • Round 5: (5 sc, inc) x2 (14 sts)
  • Round 6: (6 sc, inc) x2 (16 sts)
  • Do not stuff. Finish off, leaving a tail for sewing (fig. 2). Seam opening shut and sew to the side of the body with the wide edge flush with round 9 (counting from the top). See photo below for final placement.

BEAK (in CC1)

  • Round 1: 6 sc in MR (6 sts)
  • Round 2: (2 sc, inc) x2 (8 sts)
  • Round 3: sc around (8 sts)
  • Round 4: sc around, slst to the first stitch (8 sts)
  • Stuff lightly (I use the tail end of the yarn). Invisible finish off (video tutorial here), and weave in end, leaving a tail for sewing (fig. 3). Sew to the body between rounds 10 and 11. It should be directly between the eyes (fig. 4).
Fig. 3: Finished beak.

FEET (in CC1. Make two.)

  • Round 1: 6 sc in MR, sist to first stitch (6 sts)
  • Round 2: (slst in the next stitch, chain 4 off the side and beginning from the 2nd chain from the hook, work 3 single crochet stitches into the remaining 3 chains) x2, 2 slst. See fig. 5 for a crochet chart if needed.
  • Invisible finish off, leaving a tail for sewing. Make another identically and sew to the bottom of the body, starting from round 6 (counting from bottom)

WATTLE (in CC2)

Chain 7. Beginning from the second chain from the hook, work 3 single crochets, then slip stitch. Invisible finish off, leaving a tail for sewing, then sew it to the right of the beak, at its base. See fig. 6 for finished placement.

Fig. 6: Finished beak and wattle.

TAIL FEATHERS (Make 2 in CC1, 2 in CC2, and 3 in CC3)

  • Round 1: 6 sc in MR (6 sts)
  • Round 2: (sc, inc) x3 (9 sts)
  • Round 3: (2 sc, inc) x3 (12 sts)
  • Round 4: (3 sc, inc) x3 (15 sts)
  • Round 5-6 (2 rnds): sc around (15 sts) Round 7: (3 sc, dec) x3 (12 sts)
  • Round 8-11 (4 rnds): sc around (12 sts) Round 12: (2 sc, dec) x3 (9 sts)
  • Round 13-15 (3 rnds): sc around (9 sts)
  • Do not stuff. Invisible finish off, leaving a long tail for sewing (fig. 7). After finishing all 7 feathers, sew them to the body (beginning from 7th rnd from bottom).
  • I arranged them in two layers; the first layer has the two CC2 feathers in the middle and the two CC1 feathers on the left and right side. On the second layer, I staggered the three CC3 feathers in the gaps created by the front layer.
Fig. 7: Finished tail feather.

Your Jumbo Turkey amigurumi is all done! I hope you enjoyed crocheting it and found the pattern helpful. I would love to see your finished amigurumi, so share a picture on Instagram with me by using the #littleworldofwhimsy and tagging me @littleworldofwhimsy.