DNA crochet plushie!

Final product

I'm a scientist but also enjoy some crafting projects so when we had a new lab baby, I knew I had to create a DNA plushie. It is the building block of life and heredity after all!

This is the first crochet pattern I've published and I'm still a beginner. My final product even has lots of evidence of troubleshooting but if it helps anybody else, that is great!

Some of my pattern is inspired by these: knitting pattern, a larger left-handed helix.

I hope you have some fun trying this out and welcome any adjustments, comments or questions: evonne[dot]mcarthur][at]gmail[dot]com

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Materials list

Yarn!: I used medium weight (#4) value acrylic yarn that is washer and dryer safe. I'm sure you could use cotton or premium yarns as well. You need 5 colors:
- Larger skein of a single color for the phosphate backbone spirals. I used a purple tweed. A neutral gray, black. or navy would also look great.
- 4 colors for the 4 bases. You don't need much so this would be great for scrap yarn you have on hand. There aren't really conventional nucleotide colors but you can get some inspiration here: https://www.biostars.org/p/171056/ I used green-red (A-T) and gold-blue (G-C)

Hook: I used a 4.5mm

Fluffy stuffing or "Polyfill": Something preferrably machine washable/dryable to stuff your plushy

Large plastic or metal sewing needle: To connect the parts of the plushie together at the end

Stitch marker: Optional, but helpful as a way to mark when you get back to the side of the loop you started. You can also use scrap yarn, paperclip, or safety pin.

Pattern & instructions

US abbreviations: CH = chain, SC = single crochet, SL ST = slipstitch, INC = increase (two stitches into one), DEC = decrease (combine two stitches)

Both the backbone spirals and nucleotides are crocheted in the round. I used the "spiral technique" for the backbone and the "joining technique" for the nucleotides. I found this resource to be helpful in explaining these methods. They also explain using Running Stitch Markers (RSM) (which I also have used as you can see in the photos). This is just a way to see the seams and make sure nothing looks totally wonky. It is also helpful to use a stitch marker at the beginning of each row to mark stitch #1. I was already having trouble keeping tight, even stitches so I've used single crochets for everything. But, I'm sure you could also use other textured or larger stitches like half double crochet as well, especially if you have fluffier/wider yarn.

Backbone spirals

Start with a magic circle (example tutorial)

Row 1: SC 10 into the magic circle → 10 total stitches
- Don't need to slip stitch to join the row. Just keep stitching into the next one as a spiral! (But don't forget your stitch marker).

Row 2: SC INC into each → 2*10 = 20 total stitches

Row 3: [ SC, SC INC ] repeat → 1*10+2*10 = 30 total stitches

Row 4: SC into each → 1*30 = 30 total stitches

Row 5-38: SC INC (into st 1), SC INC (into st 2), SC x 13 (into st 3-15), SC DEC (combine st 16+17), SC DEC (combine st 18+19), SC x 11 (into 20-30) → 2*2 + 1*13 + 0.5*4 + 1*11 = 30 total stitches
- This is the main part that gives the spiral. Obviously, you can make it as long or short as you want! Stuff it as you go along because it would be too tough at the end. After a few rows check that your spiral is going in the correct direction. When you work in the round, there is technically an outer and inner side. I messed this up while developing the pattern so one of my spirals is inside-out. Not a big deal but just FYI.

Row 39: SC into each → 1*30 = 30 total stitches

Row 40: [ SC, SC DEC ] repeat → 1*10 + 0.5*20 = 20 total stitches

Row 41: SC DEC into each → .5*20 = 10 total stitches

End: Pull yarn through each of the top holes and sinch shut. It may help to use a needle for this.

If you're not sure how long you want them to be, you can follow steps 1-38, make the other backbone, make the base pairs, and then decide if you are happy with the length before ending it.

The backbone is growing! You can see my running stitch marker yarn in yellow. (A secondary one marking stitch 16 is in blue). You can also see my white ring stitch marker in the top left.

Example of the "correct" outside vs "incorrect" inside-out. They both end up looking fine but if you use these instructions and you do it the wrong way, your helix will be backwards.

Base pairs

These can be made however wide or long as you want or your spirals necessitate but these are pretty quick to crochet up not very particular. Here is what I did:

Row 1: Color A, CH 11, SL ST into st 1 to make a loop → 11 total stitches

Row 2-6: Color A: SC into each, SL ST into st 1 to join → 11 total stitches

Switch colors

Row 6-10: Color B: SL ST to connect yarn, SC into each, SL ST into st 1 to join → 11 total stitches

This makes Color A a little longer than Color B which I like because some of the bases are bigger than others (pyrimidines vs purines) but you can add another row to Color B if you want more symmetry.

Example of a base pair (left). Here It looks like I only did 4 rows in yellow though I later switched to 5. You could just stitch each base pair on as you go along (right), but I found that temporarily stitching them in place helped me to get the helix looking better (see later tips on combining together).

Combining everything together

I initially had a little trouble with this since my spirals weren't exactly the same but with a little manipulation and some placeholder stitches, it all works out. I found the best way to do this was:

Loosely put in some temporary stitches (a bright color is helpful) to hold the base pairs roughly in place to connect the spirals.

Once you have the bases in where you want them, you can start more robustly stitching them down. I used the color of the backbone so they blended.

I found it was best to start my stitches on the side where it needed to be pulled into place. For example, if the base pair was naturally leaning left when I wanted it to go right, I started stitching it into place on the right side so I could pull it in place.

At this point I still only combined everything using a "shoelace knot/bow" in case I needed to make final adjustments later.

Finally when I was happy with everything, I turned the temporary knots into square/double/triple knots and cleaned up the straggler yarn bits.

More photos

There is even sort of a major groove and minor groove! (Mostly my justification for it not being perfectly symmetrical hah!)