Leave stitches unworked - amigurumi

[Brees10]

I'm new to crochet and have only done very basic things so far! I've been making an amigurumi dinosaur and have got to a section that has got me so so confused!

As part of the instructions for the head it says:

Work only 35sc. Leave the last 7 stitches unworked. Move stitch marker to last stitch in this row. This will be the new beginning of each row.

Can anyone help please? 😩 

Thanks!

[Granny Square]

Welcome to the 'ville, and to crochet!

Don't panic.  Deep breath.  When you are making a shaped thing, like a toy dinosaur, you have to make shapes, so you aren't always going to work in plain rows or rounds, but rather add or subtract stitches somewhere, somehow.  

Leaving stitches unworked at the end of a a row is a way to shape something, example the underarm span of a sweater armhole as it transitions from the lower body section, or some piece of dinosaur anatomy apparently.  Your piece is going to become narrower at one side now, and going forward for some reason.  A lot of patterns will give you a clue of what part you are working on, like telling you you are working on the head, or body, or scales, this can help orient you so that the shaping makes sense - hopefully your pattern is telling you what part you are working on--maybe a leg hole?  (totally guessing).

[Brees10]

Thanks for responding! 

So this part is just the head and it goes from the nose to the back of the head. I'm guessing I've just finished off the nose section as it was several rows of just single crochet but I don't understand why there would be a hole? I can't see that there is one from the photo? Originally I thought I would be crocheting into the unworked stitches on the next row but then I just can't work out how to skip over those stitches now. 

I also don't know if anything I'm saying makes any sense!! 😆

[Granny Square]

It makes sense, and sometimes you need to study the pattern, and the pattern photo, to figure out what the pattern is telling you to do.  Don't post the pattern itself here, but if it's a free pattern online, or a paid pattern that has a pic of the finished item online, could you link to it, or give it's name and source?  Seeing the finished item might help me spot the shaping area you are working on.

Are the rows numbered?  Another way to solve pattern questions is to read ahead, example if the row you typed out is row 10, some future row beyond row 11 might tell you to come back to those skipped stitches in round 10. 

Simple toys are made with simple shapes, like closed tubes for nose, legs and body, and a ball for the head, but more complex shaping can involve 'short rows' where you might make a little 'hill' that starts in the middle of row 10 that is 9 increasingly shorter rows worked back and forth over the hill, and then the last row (19) continues past the hill to the end of the row, turn, and now row 20 works over the straight part of row 19 then over the hill, continuing  the other straight part of row 10.  That's an exaggerated example but where I'm going with this, if you are making a shaped thing, you may not always be working over rows completely in order like if you were making a washcloth for example.  (I hope I haven't confused the heck out of you)

[Brees10]

3 hours ago, Granny Square said:

It makes sense, and sometimes you need to study the pattern, and the pattern photo, to figure out what the pattern is telling you to do.  Don't post the pattern itself here, but if it's a free pattern online, or a paid pattern that has a pic of the finished item online, could you link to it, or give it's name and source?  Seeing the finished item might help me spot the shaping area you are working on.

Are the rows numbered?  Another way to solve pattern questions is to read ahead, example if the row you typed out is row 10, some future row beyond row 11 might tell you to come back to those skipped stitches in round 10. 

Simple toys are made with simple shapes, like closed tubes for nose, legs and body, and a ball for the head, but more complex shaping can involve 'short rows' where you might make a little 'hill' that starts in the middle of row 10 that is 9 increasingly shorter rows worked back and forth over the hill, and then the last row (19) continues past the hill to the end of the row, turn, and now row 20 works over the straight part of row 19 then over the hill, continuing  the other straight part of row 10.  That's an exaggerated example but where I'm going with this, if you are making a shaped thing, you may not always be working over rows completely in order like if you were making a washcloth for example.  (I hope I haven't confused the heck out of you)

So this is the link to where I bought the pattern https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/652690827/t-rex-crochet-pattern-dinosaur-crochet 

So far I've done the separate pieces for the body, tail, both legs and both arms and they went really well! Left the head til later as it definitely looked trickier. 

It's not telling me to start the next row after the 35th stitch is it? This was row 13 but I can't spot any other reference to it later on. Row 14 just says '(4 sc, inc) x 6, 12 sc= 48' and the following ones are the same sort of thing.

 

[Granny Square]

I never thought I'd call a T-Rex adorable, but that one is.

So this looks like it is in rounds, not rows (I hadn't noticed you said row yesterday, but I caught that earlier today and it had me thinking along different tangents, but no biggie).

The only other thing I can think of, could it be a hole under the head for the neck, which is left open until you stuff the head and sew it around the open hole onto the body?  That would make sense, because there is no reason to make an enclosed head 'sub assembly', and sewing the head onto the body around the open neck circle would be easier and tidier looking than sewing 2 stuffed enclosed shapes together.