Pattern Review: Crochet Venus of Willendorf

Archaeological Amigurumi

I’m a sucker for a good archaeological documentary and now I’m combining that interest with my stitch work. If you missed the Amigurumi trend from the early aughts chances are you have seen some at a local craft fair or on TikTok.

Amigurumi is a Japanese art form of making small stuffed toys with crochet. They’re exceedingly cute (usually) and can be distinguished by their tight stitch patterns.

I’m super new to Amigurumi specifically but I’ve been casually crocheting for a little while. So without further ado – lets give it a shot!

A Little Bit of History

The Venus of Willendorf is a Venus figurine that dates back about 25,000 years – that’s Paleolithic! Found in 1908 by Josef Szombathy near Willendorf in Austria, similar Venus figures have been found across Eurasia and even as far as Siberia.

When they were first discovered the figures were thought to be symbols of fertility and assumed to be created by men, which of course influenced the interpretation.

In the 1990s McCoid and McDermitt suggested that the Venus figures could have been carved by women. An idea originating from how the proportions reflect the view a woman has of her own body when looking down to her toes, as opposed to the view of someone else observing a woman.

For more on the Venus of Willendorf you can head over to Khan Academy and watch their video about it titled “Nude Woman (Venus of Willendorf)” , the Wikipedia article, or for more about McCoid and McDermitt head over to the Discovery Article.

How It Went

The first I made with a 3.75mm hook as suggested. I didn’t have polyfil on hand so I stuffed it with extra yarn – no issues with that – but using a different yarn did show through the holes between stitches.

Besides changing the stuffing from polyfil to yarn I made no changes to the pattern.

Pros: It totally worked
Cons: The stitches were too loose to contain the stuffing well and it started looking a bit gory when the yarn started poking out :\

The second one I made with a 3.5mm hook and it really made a difference!

I am a loose crocheter and dropping from a 3.75mm hook to a 3.5mm hook tightened up the pattern in all the ways that were bugging me the first time around. I stuffed this one with yarn (but matched the yarn this time) and it isn’t visible at all.

As far as pattern changes go I added a smooth stone in the bottom half while stuffing to give the doll some weight,yarn stuffing vs polyfil, and switched the hook size.

Pros: the weight of adding a stress stone makes it wonderful to hold, stitches are tighter
Cons: not yet!

Side by side it is easy to see the improvement in the second doll. This is why you should check gauge! The second doll also ended up with more dominant boobs… I think that was the seaming? It works either way and this is one of my first tries at this kind of crochet so I’m not mad about it.

I used the Re-Spun yarn by Lion Brand for this project in the color Cornsilk

Wrap Up

I really liked this project. The pattern is easy to read as a beginner to Amigurumi/ someone who’s still pretty new to crochet. The representation of the Venus of Willendorf is of course peak and I LOVE it.

I made this as a present for a friend and I can’t wait to see what she thinks of it – my kids love it so that’s a vote of confidence 🙂

For a link to the pattern you can head over to RedWoodStitch’s blog post Little Venus/Little Goddess or find the pattern on Raverly