Crochet ~ Staggered Increase

There are a few crochet related things that I've been meaning to have a closer look at so I can find out what sort of a difference using particular techniques actually makes. I figured I'd share them on here incase they were useful to anyone else and it gives me easy reference too. First up, staggered increase. I knew this made a big difference but thought it'd be interesting to do a proper side by side comparison.



These two pieces are the same number of stitches, same number of rounds but as you can see they look quite different. The increases are just in different places. When all the increases are on top of each other they create those points, like corners, and you get a pentagon (in this case) rather than a circle. If you're then going to work up all the way to close it again for amigurumi then it doesn't make much difference and it's much easier to count stitches as you go when the increase is even. If you were making a bowl shape then I think depending on your yarn and how high it went you might get slight points round the edge but mostly this makes a big difference if you're making a flat circle shape.

I started both of these with a magic circle with 5dc into it, 2dc in each stitch then *1dc, 2dc in next stitch* 5 times. For the pink I continued with *2dc, 2dc in next* 5 times, *3dc, 2dc in next* 5 times, *4dc, 2dc in next* 5 times and *5dc, 2dc in next* 5 times. For the orange I did a round of *1dc, 2dc in next, 1dc* 5 times, *3dc, 2dc in next* 5 times, *1dc, 2dc in next, 3dc* 5 times, *4dc, 2dc in next, 1dc* 5 times.
It doesn't really matter where you put the increases so long as they aren't on top of the one you did the round before and they are evenly distributed within the round (or you'll end up with an uneven shape which is awesome but a whole other thing) and you should end up with a nice smooth circle.