I love making these little squeeze ball octopus toys. They are a big hit locally where I have an artisan/vendor space.

I like to use my leftover yarn from yarn cakes to make these super fun, but they are also a great baby teething toy if you use cotton.

I find these squeeze/stress balls at my local Michael’s store for the “stuffing” so the heads squeeze like a stress ball, but you can also stuff with stuffing.

Any leftover scrap yarn will work and they work up super quick, but a pattern note: if you use several bits of leftover try NOT to switch yarn in the actual tentacle since it may be harder to weave in your end. If changing yarns try to change up in the head area - so, you can do each tentacle a different color, but just do it up at near the head so you have a good place to weave in your ends.

Gauge isn’t super important, but you don’t want either your squeeze ball or other material to “poke” through. I use my H hook for these, but if you are using polyfill you may want to go down to your G hook so you don’t have material poking through.

This pattern is an easy to follow beginner level pattern with a lot of photos to help along the way.