If you're a lactation consultant, childbirth educator, midwife or other professional who's passionate about supporting breastfeeding families, chances are you've got at least one "breast" in your toolbox! I love love love tools with visual and kinesthetic aspects that can help reinforce hands-on demonstration and a portable breast can do that! They're great for demonstrating hand expression, breast massage, proper latch and more!
When building my own toolbox for virtual and home visits, I knew exactly what I wanted! I wanted a crochet breast of a certain size for easy portability. It had to be single crochet only, quick to complete in one piece and no sewing! However, finding the holy grail of crochet patterns was a challenging task. I failed to find exactly what I wanted so I made my own! Excited to share it with you here and I promise it's easy peasy! If you do make one (or more!) of your own, let's see it in comments!
Crochet Demo Breast
Supplies:
3 mm crochet hook
Medium weight yarn in your choice of 2
Stitches:
sc = single crochet
inc = increase by crocheting two stitches in one stitch from previous round
dec = decrease by crocheting two stitches together from previous round
Nipple/areola (Color 1):
Make a magic ring then 8 sc into ring. Close ring.
Round 1, 2 & 3: sc (8)
Round 4: 2 sc in each stitch (16)
Round 5: (sc, inc) x8 (24)
Round 6: (sc, sc, inc) x 8 (32)
Round 7: 32 sc (change to Color 2 in last stitch)
Breast (Color 2)
Round 8: (sc, sc, sc, inc) x8 (40)
Round 9: sc (40)
Round 10: (sc, sc, sc, sc, inc) x 8 (48)
Round 11, 12 & 13: sc (48)
Round 14: (sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, inc) x 8 (56)
Round 15, 16 & 17: sc (56)
Round 18: (sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, inc) x 8 (64)
Round 19, 20 & 21: sc (64)
Base (Continue with Color 2)
Round 22: (sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, dec) x 8 (56)
Round 23: (sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, dec) x8 (48)
Round 24: (sc, sc, sc, sc, dec) x 8 (40)
Round 25: (sc, sc, sc, dec) x8 (32)
Round 26: (sc, sc, dec) x 8 (24)
Round 27: (sc, sc, dec) x 8 (24)
Continue (sc, sc, dec) around until opening is 1cm (or size of preference) and stuff with filling. Continue to work around (sc, dec) and close.
Pattern notes:
Worked in a continual spiral.
A stitch marker is helpful to mark beginning of rounds.
Nipple variations: for a longer nipple, add a row after Round 3 or for a flatter nipple, eliminate one or two of the first three rows.
Happy Crafting! Jennifer
