Strawberry Bee Free Velvet Crochet Pattern

This cute and cuddly Strawbee pattern is a breeze to work up and is super cute! She is inspired from a strawberry color palette and is a cute twist on a traditional bee. The wing detail is the perfect extra touch, and you can customize the colors of the bee and wings to your favorite color. This pattern is accessible to beginners, and you can adapt it to any size you want by changing the weight of the yarn!

Strawbee — a fluffy pink bee — is my newest 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 fluffiest bee ever!

Amigurumi bees have been all the rage recently and I thought it would be fun to make a jumbo velvet bee. I wanted to put a fun twist on the classic yellow bee so I decided to make mine strawberry themed! The overall effect reminds me of a strawberry shortcake and just adds to the cuteness.

You can make this bee in any weight yarn, but I used worsted weight velvet. If you use non velvet yarn or sport weight, the result will be smaller and less fluffy.

This pattern is super versatile and can be customized to any color you imagine! I can even picture a pastel rainbow of bees, so let your creativity run free with this one.

If you want to check out a fun video I made of my process, check out this post on Instagram.

Tips for working with velvet yarn

If you’re a first timer to velvet yarn, don’t worry! This pattern is extremely beginner friendly since it’s just a cylinder and it’s a great way to practice using fluffier yarn.

Velvet is slippery and the stitches tend to come out a little looser, so it’s extremely important to use a tight tension for a smooth and even result. If you find that your work isn’t even, then try sizing down a hook.

Although velvet yarn isn’t quite fluffy enough that it becomes difficult to see the stitches, but it can still be helpful to feel for the stitches with your fingers. Whenever you feel a small gap or hole in the work, that means that there’s a stitch there. Hopefully these tips help you get started making your first velvet project!

The Pattern

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

Description

This cute and cuddly Strawbee pattern is a breeze to work up and is super cute! She is inspired from a strawberry color palette and is a cute twist on a traditional bee. The wing detail is the perfect extra touch, and you can customize the colors of the bee and wings to your favorite color. This pattern is accessible to beginners, and you can adapt it to any size you want by changing the weight of the yarn!

Yarn

  • Bernat Baby Velvet Yarn (worsted)
    • (<1 skein) of Ever After Pink
    • (<1 skein) Snowy White

Notions

  • Size G (4.0 mm) Clover Amour crochet hook
  • 6.0 mm safety eyes
  • tapestry needle
  • polyester fiberfill
  • stitch markers
  • black embroidery thread

Abbreviations (US)

  • MR: Magic ring
  • 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 x times

Technical Notes

  • Crochet in continuous rounds unless otherwise specified
  • 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.
  • For this pattern, the MC is pink, and CC is white.

Final Size

3″ x 1.5″

BODY (Begin in MC)

  • 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)
  • Switch to CC, do not cut MC. Insert 6mm safety eyes between rounds 2 and 3 (counting from the bottom), with 2 stitches between them (Fig. 4.).
  • Round 6-9: (3 rnds) sc around (30 sts) Switch to MC, do not cut CC.
  • Round 10-12: (3 rnds) sc around (30 sts) Switch to CC, do not cut Mc.
  • Round 13-15: (3 rnds) sc around (30 sts) Switch to MC. Cut CC.
  • Round 16-17: (2 rnds) sc around (30 sts) Round 18: (3 sc, dec) x6 (24 sts)
  • Round 17: (2 sc, dec) x6 (18 sts) Stuff.
  • Round 18: (sc, dec) x6 (12 sts) Round 19: dec x6 (6 sts)
  • Finish off in the round, and weave in end (Fig. 1). Using black embroidery thread, embroider a “V” shaped mouth to the face of the bee.
Fig. 1

WING (in CC)

  • Round 1: 6 sc in MR (6 sts)
  • Round 2: (chain 4 off the side of the circle, then working back along the chain and beginning from the second chain from the hook, sc, 2 hdc, then slst) x2. Do not work into remaining stitches, and invisible finish off, leaving a tail for sewing (Fig. 2).
  • Using the tail, sew the back of the wind to the left and right sides of the body, in the middle of the central MC stripe (Fig. 3). (2 wingtips)

I hope you enjoyed making Strawbee! If you run into any problems feel free to ask me a question in the comments section below or through email at littleworldofwhimsy@gmail.com.

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