Dinosaur Crochet Pattern

When my younger sisters each requested a crochet dinosaur for Christmas, I thought I had that year’s gifts in the bag. Easy peasy! They’d be done in no time at all.

Looking at crochet dinosaur patterns a little while later, I was surprised how few there were similar to the style I wanted. Sure, there were an abundance of squat, cutesy green dinosaurs that would have been picturesque at the end of a baby’s crib, but I wanted something a little more realistic for my tween sisters; something that could be played with AND displayed on a desk. A dinosaur crochet pattern that was adorable and ferocious all in one. My sisters are big fans of the video game ARK (I rather like the game myself admittedly 😏), which is based off of Jurassic Park. Of course, their iconic dinosaur, the velociraptor, was uppermost in my thoughts.

I finally stumbled upon this pattern, which had the balance of cute and terrifying that I desired. It was perfect!

And so I set to work.

Guess who forgot to pay attention to the size?

🙃

The pattern is excellently written and the crochet dinosaur is even more adorable than pictured, but oh my goodness — it’s larger than my cat! 

Nope, I did not have those dinosaurs done by Christmas. My sisters were enthralled when they finally received them though!

Wanting to make similar dinosaurs in a fraction of the time, I invented this little dinosaur crochet pattern. These dinosaurs are no taller than a soda can!

Crochet Dinosaur Pattern Info

This dinosaur crochet pattern is best for intermediate to advanced crocheters. Not because there are any super complicated techniques involved – and even with somewhat more tricky stitches, there are plenty of images to help you along the way! – but mainly because there are a few times where we work in a very small round (4 stitches). 

The pattern is only in English at this time, in US terminology. 

The final size of the crochet dinosaur is 5 1/2 inches tall and 9 inches long, depending on your tension and yarn size – more on that in a minute. Gauge is not crucial in this pattern, so long as the stitches are uniform and do not allow stuffing to be visible through the holes. 

You can also add wire/pipe cleaner to make your crochet dinosaur more posable, which the pattern will walk you through. It’s totally optional, but it’s definitely a fun addition. We’ll talk about wire in a bit. 

The pattern spans 24 pages and contains plentiful images to help every step of the way. If you want to save ink when printing, it’s followed by 4 printer-friendly pages without images. However, when following this version, be sure to refer to the photos if you need a visual aid to help support the written pattern!

Supplies for Making a Crochet Dinosaur

🦖 YARN: in any size and in any gauge. The dinosaurs in all the images here (and in the pattern itself) are made with 4G/medium weight yarn, but feel free to use any yarn! Larger yarn would create a larger dinosaur, and smaller yarn would result in a smaller dinosaur. Size the crochet hook accordingly, of course! I typically purchase all my yarn at Hobby Lobby and Amazon. As for the yarn in these images, you can find the links to them here: grey yarn (Hobby Lobby), blue yarn (Hobby Lobby), and green yarn (Amazon).

🦖 CROCHET HOOK: For medium gauge 4G yarn, I scale down on the recommended hook size by quite a bit, and use either my F (3.75mm) or G (4.00mm) crochet hook. I’m currently using these inexpensive crochet hooks (Amazon); for more info, you can read all about my favorite crochet hooks in this post.

🦖 TAPESTRY NEEDLE: Used for sewing the crochet dinosaur together and weaving in ends. My favorite ever were these Clover needles (Amazon) (I was shocked when I discovered they made needles too!) until I misplaced them somewhere. Hopefully I can find them again someday and keep better track of them, because they were the best!

🦖 POLYFIL: I purchased this big ol’ 20 pound box of polyfil (Amazon) for a really great price, and I’m pretty sure I’ll never run out of stuffing again.

🦖 SCISSORS

🦖 WIRE: Entirely optional, but helpful if you want to make the crochet dinosaur a little easier to pose. While you could purchase 16-24g craft wire, I can’t recommend any specific type/brand because I typically use scrap electrical wire that my husband brings home from work! You could also cut up a metal clothes hanger, or twist a few pieces of pipe cleaner together. You can wire the body, legs, and arms in this dinosaur crochet pattern.

Abbreviations & Stitches

 You’ll need to know the following crochet stitches and terms… (US terminology)

St – stitch

YO – yarn over

Rnd – round

Sc – single crochet

Inc – increase (2 sc in the same st)

Sc2tog – single crochet two stitches together (AKA decrease)

Ch – chain

Sl st – slip stitch

[] x_ – repeat the steps in the brackets the number of times after the x.

Lastly, if the pattern says “sc 2”, it means that you have to crochet 1 sc in each of the next 2 st. This goes for any number and for any st type.

A random dinosaur fun fact: The velociraptors in Jurassic Park look nothing like actual velociraptors. The movie/book raptors are actually a combination of two completely different dinosaurs, the deinonychus and utahraptor. Michael Crichton (the author of the original book), thinking that those names didn’t sound very ferocious, decided to call them velociraptors instead, even though a real velociraptor is actually only slightly larger than a chicken – not nearly as terrifying!

Purchase the Dinosaur Crochet Pattern here!

Happy Crafting!

If you have any questions or run into any problems while making this pattern, don’t hesitate to contact me via my contact page, Instagram, Etsy or Facebook – I’ll be happy to help!

Save this pattern for later by pinning the image below!

We participe in the Amazon Affiliates Program, which allows us to earn fees by advertising products and linking to amazon.com. Don’t worry; you pay the same price when you purchase through affiliate links as you would if you went directly to Amazon! We simply receive a small percentage of the total purchase price. By shopping through our links, you are helping to support our blog. We promise to only share links that we would personally recommend to family and friends 🙂