A sitting bunny, a striped bee and a pocket whale to crochet

Seven parts and a cloudberry tail

The Cloudberry Bunny sits with its ears up, about 6 in (15 cm) tall and 2½ in (6.5 cm) across the body. Head, body, ears, arms, feet and tail make seven parts, or nine pieces once you count the pairs. Each one is a small ball or tube of single crochet.

The feet were added after the first plan. Without them the bunny tips forward, so two small ones sewn to the front of the base keep it upright. The tail is the only part in a second colour, apricot, which is where the name comes from.

Rounds are numbered straight through all nine pieces, 1 to 69. The head takes 1 to 21, the ears start at 40, the tail at 66, and no label turns up twice. The ears and arms are made twice from the same rounds, which is the moment a saved place in Row & Round stops you starting the second ear from the wrong number.

Assembly is short. Pin the head over the open end of the body and sew round with the body's long tail, add a little stuffing before the last stitches, then put the ears on either side of the magic ring, between the 3rd and 4th rounds of the head.

Two-round stripes, carried inside the bee

The bee is an egg shape worked head first: five rounds of increases up to 30 stitches, then straight sides through the stripes. Yellow takes rounds 1 to 9. After that it goes brown for two rounds, yellow for two, brown for two, yellow for two, and brown from round 18 to the tail.

Stripes that shallow are too short to cut and rejoin, so the idle colour travels up the inside of the body. Change colour on the last yarn over of the stitch before the new colour, and keep the small step where the stripes meet at the back. One thing to check on your own cotton: whether the brown shadows through the yellow.

At the stated gauge the bee comes out about 3 in (7.5 cm) long and 2 in (5 cm) across. A 4 in bee needs extra body rounds, or a bigger hook and a heavier yarn. Either way the yardage below stops being right.

The wings are two small flat white circles. Sew each along one edge only, side by side over the first brown stripe, and they stand up instead of lying flat. The antennae are single straight stitches ending in a French knot, worked from between the 7th and 8th rounds, four stitches apart.

A whale that narrows in two steps

The Pocket Whale is one piece from the nose: six rounds of increases to 36 stitches, eight plain rounds, then decreases that taper toward the tail. The tail comes down in two small steps, 12 to 10 to 8 stitches, instead of one hard pinch. That leaves the flukes a neat end to sit on. Stuff the tail lightly.

Flukes and fins are small flat pieces that you flatten and leave unstuffed. Sew the two flukes side by side to the tail, angled out in a V. Each fin goes on a side of the body, two rounds behind the eyes and level with the smile.

The cream belly patch is an oval, worked round both sides of a short chain. Pin it lengthwise under the head and body, then whipstitch it on. The oval is the same at both ends, so it can't go on backwards.

Of the three, this is the Easy one. The oval and the tail are the only places where the whale asks anything of you.

Cotton, a 3.5 mm hook and a firm hand

All three toys use worsted-weight (#4) cotton and a US E-4 (3.5 mm) hook. Gauge is 22 sc and 24 rounds to 4 in (10 cm), worked in a spiral. It isn't critical, but crochet tightly enough that the stuffing doesn't show through. A looser hand gives a bigger toy, because the sizes here are estimates worked out from that gauge.

Yarn amounts are estimates too, so read each one as about:

You also need polyester fibrefill, a stitch marker and a tapestry needle for every toy, plus pins for the bunny and the whale. The whale is rated Easy. The bunny and the bee sit between Easy and Intermediate, and the extra difficulty is in the sewing and the colour changes, not the stitches.

• Cloudberry Bunny: about 110 yd (100 m) of cream, about 8 yd (7 m) of apricot, and a little dark brown and soft pink for the face
• Bumble Bee: about 25 yd (23 m) of yellow, about 15 yd (14 m) of dark brown and about 10 yd (9 m) of white, with a little pink for optional cheeks
• Pocket Whale: about 55 yd (50 m) of sea blue, about 6 yd (5.5 m) of cream, and a little dark brown for the face

Eyes, bought or stitched

Every toy takes either safety eyes or embroidered ones. The bunny uses 9 mm eyes, the bee and the whale 8 mm. They sit between the 11th and 12th rounds of the bunny's head, about 7 stitches apart. On the bee they go between the 4th and 5th rounds, 5 stitches apart. On the whale they sit on the sides of the head between the 9th and 10th rounds, 12 stitches apart.

Safety eyes go in before the hole closes, and the washer should be pushed on hard until it clicks. For a child under 3, or any child who still puts things in their mouth, embroider the eyes in dark brown instead and sew every part on firmly. The bunny can be finished with no safety eyes at all, since its nose and the rest of its face are stitched.