Current mood: in love with crochet cactuses

My name is Claire and I am addicted to crochet cactuses. Crocheting cacti? I don’t care what we call them. I’m making more of them and you can’t stop me. I’ve made small ones, big ones, keyring ones, wool ones, acrylic ones, cotton ones… you get the idea.

This all started with an amazing free pattern from the awesome blog A Crafty Concept, you can have a look yourself here: A Crafty Concept – how to crochet a cactus pillow.

Ashley so kindly shares her patterns for us all to make, enjoy (and even sell – here are mine on Etsy).

Supersize crochet cactuses

Then, I remembered I had some gorgeous Paintbox Yarns Wool Mix Super Chunky in Pistachio Green, leftover from a crochet Baby Yoda. The original pattern uses aran or worsted weight yarn. Unfortunately I didn’t have enough chunky yarn left to make a massive pillow. So I scaled the pattern down (smaller starting chain, fewer repeats etc).

Because the bobbles give the cactus such an irresistible, squidgy texture, my family and I usually end up arguing over who gets to snuggle up to it!

I wanted to make more cactuses this size, but needed a more cost effective way of scaling up. Chunky yarn can be quite expensive. So I experimented with using a bigger crochet hook (7mm) and two strands held together of our favourite Stylecraft Special DK. It worked out really well (see the grey cactus in the photo at the top of the page). Chunky, squidgy, big, not too expensive to make.

Mini me

We don’t need to talk about how many cactuses I had made at this point, nor how many ball of green yarn I’ve bought (ALL OF THEM, EVERY TIME I SAW ONE IN A SHOP). But funnily enough, I found myself with lots of odds and ends of green yarn. I’m hoping to sell some of these cactus pillows so, using the yarn leftovers, I wondered… if I could make something… smaller perhaps… MINI cactuses. Obviously.

So I made myself a little cactus keyring. These would definitely be fun little gifts to make for friends. There are lots of different ways you could use these – keyings, bag charm, decorations, cactus garland/bunting, letterbox gift. Endless possibilities.

I reached out to the original crochet cactus queen, Ashley, to check it was okay to write up a pattern for this little mini cactus. While I redesigned the arms (so they’re incorporated into the last row of each side, minimising ends to sew in!), some elements are similar to the original pattern so I wanted to make sure I had the ‘ok’ from Ashley. Very graciously, she said yes. Even more excitingly, she has offered to feature it on her blog as a guest post. Click here to see my guest post on Ashley’s A Crafty Concept blog and get your hands on the free pattern and start your crochet cactus addiction of your own. If you prefer, there is a paid for version available now on Etsy.

Do you like a crochet cactus? There are lots of patterns out there – which are your favourites? Let me know!