The Largest Tarantula Ever! – A Crochet pattern review

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My Project Prep!

Happy 2025, everyone! First of all, this post is a pattern review! If you like the look of the finished product and want to make it yourself, be sure to check out the pattern! I bought this pattern on Etsy from a shop named LarriecraftsNL, and the listing is called “Pattern Crochet Giant Spider Tarantula African Flower.” (I attached a link to the listing in the name of the pattern.)

This pattern consists of different sized African Flowers sewn together! Making the African Flowers was so much fun, but there is a thing or two I change having to do with my technique the next time around!

My project prep consisted of some steps I did at the beginning and some steps I should have done at the beginning and will do at the beginning next time I make this pattern. First, we have to get our yarn together! I chose four different colors, three different colors, and what I like to call a base color. I decided to use a base color because I like the look of cohesiveness for my project. Here are my colors!!

I decided to use the white as my base color, but around this time in the prep process, I was worried that the colors clashed too much. When I started, these colors were all from separate, slightly used, skeins of I Love This Yarn. I didn’t want to carry the flat skeins around, so I just winded them up real quick. Once I had my yarn all winded and together, and had to decide what size hook I would use.

The pattern suggested a 3.5mm hook, to avoid stuffing poking out of the natural holes in the pattern. Personally, the holes don’t really bother me. To be honest, the holes don’t show too much in my finished spider anyway! I have tight tension though, so that could be a part of it! I used a 5.0mm hook, it is currently the only hook I have in the brand Clover, and I will do almost anything to work with a Clover hook. Here is a link to the Clover hook that I use! Here is a link for a 10 pack of the Clover hooks!

I also had quite a bit of stuffing from a bag I bought a long time ago. At this point, I was ready to start, or so I thought. I also should have grabbed my embroidery needle to weave in my ends, and some eyes for the spider so I knew they were close by. Not having these items right away really hindered my process in the end, and the spider would not have taken as much time in the end if I had these on me from the start. I use this project bag, in the color ‘Floral Gray’, so I can keep everything for my projects together!

Lets get Started!!

I started the project with my very first pentagon! The pattern was super easy to follow! The African Flowers were beautiful, and easy to make! They’ve actually become one of my favorite things to make, they only take a few minutes to make each and they really are beautiful. Here is where my first mistake came in. Instead of slip stitching and pulling through, I wish I would have sewn in the last stitch for a more seamless edge. Doing that would have made sewing the shapes together much easier at the end. Of course, I came up with a way to make sure everything was counted okay, but it did take a little bit of trial and error.

Here is my very first pentagon!!

Now that I had seen the colors together, I was so excited to do more! At this point in the process, I was doing everything at once, color changing, crocheting, making an entire pentagon at the same time. This actually slowed me down, believe it or not. I also wasn’t weaving in my ends as I went, which is never a good idea. Once I got my first pentagon done, I decided to figure out other combinations of the colors I had!

I love these color combinations! If you look close you can see a pattern! Green always follows pink, which always follows blue. Believe it or not, this wasn’t on purpose. Once I got to this point, I got a little more confident with my color choice! All the way through the pentagons, I went from one pentagon to the next without burying any stitches, or sewing in my ends at all. That meant that at the end of the pentagons, I had at about 80 ends to sew in. This was an issue because I hate weaving in ends as much as the next crocheter. I weaved in the ends over the course of the next two days, which were days I could have spent crocheting, but I was putting off waving in all of those ends.

Now, this is about where I stopped taking excessive pictures because I wasn’t thinking so we’ll have to use our imagination for a little bit!

Up until this point, I wasn’t being super efficient when it came to making my shapes. Once I hit the hexagons, I began to sew in my ends as I went. Around this time, I noticed that when the hexagons were just finished, without the ends waved in, they were wavey and didn’t sit flat. Interestingly, once I wove my ends in, they sat perfectly flat! One of my favorite things about making my shapes was seeing them all together. Using the same color patterns as before, I made all kinds of Pentagons, this time around I had no ends to weave in, so I was able to move on directly to the heptagons.

It is worth saying that I had decided early on to prep every shape before I began sewing things together. I believe that this helped me with sewing everything together at the end. Personally, I think I would have gotten frustrated if I was just getting into the groove of sewing, and needed to stop to make more shapes. I’m glad I did it this way, and I would do it this way every time. I finished the Hexagons significantly faster than the pentagons, even though there was more hexagons to make in the end. I attribute this to having sewn my ends in as I went.

Around this time, I was starting to run out of the yarn I had winded earlier in the process. I had winded excess yarn to what the pattern told me to, but I didn’t immediately realize that I would need more because I upped my hook. Oops!

I started my heptagons, there were only 8 and I was hoping I could stretch my yarn a little, and so my game of yarn chicken began. I don’t get to play yarn chicken often because I don’t often use all of my allotted yarn because I like to give myself too much to work with. Keep in mind, I still had to make some octagons for the body. I was running low on white and blue. On one of my Heptagons, I was hoping the white would make it, but..

I lost yarn chicken and ended up having to take a run to my closest Hobby Lobby to pick up some more white and blue. At this point, I had spent more time making the shapes than I was hoping to spend on this project all together. I meant to post this in early December 2024, but life happened and I was slow with the shapes.

At this point in the process, I was doing several “short cuts” (I guess you could call them), so I finished my shapes faster. I made all of the center rows at the same time so I didn’t have to keep referencing my notes. I buried all of the strands that I possibly could, and sewed in the rest as I went. This really helped with saving time. I also began doing to work in more of a production chain. I would do all the centers, all the flower bits, all the stripes, and all of the borders at the same time. This sped up my process significantly!

Soon, all I had left to do was the octagons! Before the octagons, I decided to assemble the abdomen!

Assembly of the largest tarantula ever part One!

I decided to start on the abdomen. I did not take as many photos as I should have because I was so focused on sewing. During the assembly is when this pattern really started to shine! I still have no idea how people make these patterns! I decided to sew in rows(blue), like this and it worked just fine! Then, I would sew up the sizes between each row(red).

In this picture, you can see a bit of the stuffing I was referring to earlier. Personally, this doesn’t bother me, but if you are considering ordering one, make sure you choose 3.5 or 5.0 accordingly. This is an example of a 5.0, and a 3.5 would be pretty significantly smaller, but not as much stuffing would show!

Once the abdomen was together, it was time to make the head!

Crocheting, again!

Now, the point of the Octagons is that the head is the width of the abdomen. This meant that I made my two octagons after I had already assembled and stuffed the abdomen. Now, once I had made the octagons, I started the width of the body. If I could go back/in the future, I would do this differently.

I had made the head overly wide. At this point, not having my safety eyes on me slowed me down. It had been a long time since I had even used safety eyes, so I wasn’t completely sure where they were. I was even considering ordering more before I went to dig in my supplies. Good news! I had some!! I stuck the main eyes in, and decided to add six more smaller eyes. This was one of my favorite decisions, look how cute!!!

Assembly of the largest tarantula part two!

Soon, I was back to sewing, and the first thing that needed sewn was the head onto the body.

Now, I did have a little bit of trouble with this, but the pattern includes detailed descriptions and photos! It made this process significantly easier!! Once I had the head and abdomen attached, it was time to assemble the last pieces.

The “largest tarantula ever” may seem massive already, but his legs really sell it. I was worried around this time that I had somehow made too many shapes, and I would have some leftover, meaning that I would have wasted time and materials.

Before we get to the assembly of the hardest part of the entire project, I want to touch on why this post is so late. Around this point in the project, we were about a week to Christmas, which was already late, but let’s not talk about that part.

I was upstairs finishing up a tie blanket for my mom. I had finished the blanket up and wrapped it, and I was heading down the stairs to where our tree is, and I took a tumble. My foot slipped off of one of the steps, and I fell. Somehow, the part of my body that I hurt was my working hand, my right hand. I had managed to slam my hand against the edge of one of the stairs, and it swelled up and hurt to move. We were genuinely considering it may be fractured, so I didn’t work for about a week and a half until it wasn’t hurting any more.

The first day I came back to this project, I completely finished it, and wondered myself why I was stressing so badly about how long the legs would take.

The legs started with what would be considered the ‘toe’ I suppose.

The hardest part of the leg assembly was connecting the straight parts of the leg together. There aren’t very many of these in each leg, but there is 8 legs, so it was not my favorite part of the project. Now, the pattern gave a little bit to be desired in this portion. I found myself spinning the legs in my hands, trying to figure out how to correctly assemble them. After I got the first one right, it was easy, but until then, it was a struggle.

As I had in other portions of this project, I worked in what I like to call an assembly line. I progressed on the final 7 legs all at the same time, and I could see improvement as I worked.

This project was actually really therapeutic, and I’m excited to make another one! On the same note as earlier, I didn’t take further photos of the legs, fangs or pedipalps in this stage because I simply didn’t think about it. I was soooooo excited to see this big guy done that it didn’t even cross my mind.

The Big Reveal!!

Are you ready for this, because I don’t think that you are. Our ‘Largest Tarantula Ever’ is just over 34 inches from toe to toe. He is absolutely massive! I am so blown away by the finished product.

Isn’t he so cool?! He came together so wonderfully! This is my favorite project to date.

Overall, the pattern was easy to follow, it was written well, it wasn’t overwritten, you are given the details you need, and things come together great! It was a phenomenal pattern, and I am so excited to try more patterns like this. It still blows my mind that someone could figure out how to construct this from shapes, honestly. I totally recommend the pattern! Remember, you can buy the pattern and support LarriecraftsNL here!

If you are interested in buying one of these guys for yourself, they will be available for custom order here! Make sure to read the description really well before you purchase please. I look forward to hearing from you!! See you tomorrow with a new post!

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