Crochet Drum Free Pattern For Mantels & Tree Garlands

Half a dozen along a mantel and the whole shelf reads as Christmas without a single bauble. Wrapped thread makes the crossed sticks on this crochet drum ornament, so nothing needs crocheting at that scale.

Vertical grey bands break up the red body on this crochet drum free pattern for mantels and tree garlands, worked in as colour changes rather than added on top. A cream disc forms the drumhead with a grey ring edging it, and two thin sticks lie crossed over the surface, each one a wrapped strand rather than a crocheted piece. Everything sits small enough to hold between two fingers. Work the side bands evenly spaced, since uneven gaps show immediately on a shape this round.

Crochet Drum

Small round objects hold a shelf better than they have any right to. This one sits about the size of a mandarin, keeps its shape from one December to the next, and reads instantly as a holiday piece without a single reindeer involved. The build is a stiff cylinder with two flat heads and a laced rim, which means you are making one tube and two circles. No limbs, no wobbly neck, no shaping headache halfway through. Christmas is the obvious home for it, though a bowl of them holds up fine into January. One drum is an evening. Six drums is a Saturday afternoon with something on in the background.

Countdown

• One drum, start to finish: 90 minutes to two hours, including the rim lacing and weaving in ends. The lacing is slower than it looks.
• A batch of six: roughly seven to eight hours if you make them one at a time. Closer to five and a half if you work in stages — all six tubes, then all twelve heads, then all the lacing in one sitting.
• Latest you can start: a single drum the night before is comfortable. Six for a mantel needs three or four evenings, so start the weekend before you want them out. Twelve as gift toppers needs a full week of evenings, and the lacing is what will eat you alive, not the crochet.

Where It Lives

• Mantel run. Three drums in graduated colours, spaced along the shelf with greenery between them. The flat top means nothing rolls off, which is more than you can say for most round ornaments.
• Tiered tray. The middle tier, upright, with the laced side facing out. Drums photograph well from the side and badly from above, so turn them.
• Garland. Thread a length of jute through the hanging loops and hang between the drums with wooden beads. Space them wider than feels right — four or five inches — because the zig-zag lacing needs air around it to read as lacing.
• Wreath. One drum wired to the lower third, off-centre, with a stick of cinnamon tucked behind it. Two drums on one wreath looks like a mistake.
• Gift topper. Sits flat on a wrapped box lid and takes ribbon straight through the hanging loop. This is the strongest use for it. A crocheted drum on a parcel gets kept.
• Desk or shelf, year-round. Made in brass and cream rather than red, it stops being seasonal entirely and just becomes an object.

Pieces

• Drum shell — make 1
• Drumhead disc — make 2
• Rim trim round — make 2, worked directly onto the assembled drum
• Tension lacing — surface embroidery, worked once around the shell
• Hanging loop — make 1, optional

Materials

• Worsted weight yarn in a shell colour. Brown, wood tone or red are the ones the source points at.
• Worsted weight yarn in a drumhead colour. White or cream.
• Small amount of contrast yarn for the rim and the lacing. Gold, black or a deeper shade of the shell colour.
• Crochet hook one or two sizes below the yarn band recommendation, so the stuffing does not show through.
• Polyester fiberfill.
• Yarn needle.
• Scissors.
• Stitch marker.
• Optional: keychain ring, jute cord or narrow ribbon for hanging.

The Pattern

A note before you start. The source video does not state a single stitch count, round number or finished measurement aloud. Every number below is reconstructed from standard amigurumi circle and tube math to a 30-stitch diameter, which lands the finished drum at roughly two and a half inches across in worsted weight. They are marked so you know what came from where. Scale the whole thing by working the disc to a larger or smaller round and matching the shell chain to whatever count you end on.

Worked in continuous rounds unless stated. Mark the first stitch of every round.

Drumhead Disc — make 2

• Round 1: 6 sc in a magic ring [6]
• Round 2: inc in each st around [12]
• Round 3: (sc 1, inc) repeat 6 times [18] — the disc should still curl into a shallow cup at this stage, which is normal and flattens out by round 5
• Round 4: (sc 2, inc) repeat 6 times [24]

• Round 5: (sc 3, inc) repeat 6 times [30] lay it on the table now, it should sit dead flat with no cupping and no ruffled edge, and if it cups your tension is tight so go up a hook, if it ruffles go down
• Fasten off the first disc, leaving a long tail for sewing.
• Fasten off the second disc, leaving a long tail for sewing.

Drum Shell — make 1

• Ch 30, taking care not to twist the chain, then sl st into the first ch to join into a ring [30]
• Round 1: sc in each ch around [30] — the tube should stand as a clean open ring here, and if the foundation has spiralled into a figure eight you will not fix it later, so pull it out now
• Rounds 2 to 12: sc in each st around [30] — by round 8 the tube should hold its own shape when stood on the table without support, and if it slumps flat your fabric is too loose for a drum and wants a smaller hook
• Fasten off, leaving a long tail for sewing.

Rim Trim — make 2

• Join the contrast yarn at any point along the top edge of the assembled drum, working through both the shell edge and the disc edge together.
• Work a round of surface sl st around the entire seam, one sl st per stitch [30]
• Fasten off and weave the ends inside the drum before the second head goes on, if you can still reach.
• Repeat the round along the bottom seam [30]

Tension Lacing

• Thread a long length of contrast yarn onto a yarn needle.
• Bring the needle up through the shell just below the top rim.
• Take a long diagonal stitch down and across to just above the bottom rim, spanning roughly four stitches sideways.
• Take the next stitch back up on the diagonal to the top rim, forming a V.
• Continue around the drum until the zig-zag closes back on itself.
• Anchor the final stitch inside the shell and bury the tail.

Here is the thing nobody mentions. If you space the Vs perfectly evenly the drum looks like a beach ball. Real tension ropes pull unevenly, so nudging one or two of the Vs half a stitch off true makes the whole thing read as hardware instead of decoration. It is a two-minute fix that changes what the object looks like from across a room.

Hanging Loop — optional

• Ch 12, sl st into the first ch to form a loop.
• Fasten off, leaving a tail long enough to sew.
• Attach at the top rim seam, positioned over one of the lacing anchor points so it looks structural rather than added on.

Safety and Eye Timing

• The drum as written has no face. If you are giving it one — and a small stitched face on the top head turns this into a different object entirely — the timing rule is absolute. Safety eyes go into the top disc after round 5 and before that disc is sewn to the shell. Once the head is attached and the drum is stuffed, the backs are unreachable and you will be cutting the piece open.
• Place them close together and low on the disc, around the round 3 to round 4 boundary, then set the washers.
• Swap to embroidered eyes for anyone under three. Same for anything going into a treat bag, a party favour pile, or a classroom. Safety eye washers hold well until they don’t, and a drum is exactly the size a small child will decide to chew. French knots in black yarn take an extra four minutes and remove the question completely.
• One more thing specific to this piece. The hanging loop and any keychain hardware are a strangulation and choking risk on a toy. If the drum is going to a child rather than a shelf, leave the loop off.

Assembly

The source describes increasing the body to diameter and attaching two discs, which would give the drum two bases and one lid. The build below treats the shell as an open tube with a disc at each end, which is the version that matches the finished object.

• Pin the first disc to one end of the shell, matching the edges all the way round before you put a needle through anything. Thirty stitches against thirty stitches is easy to misjudge by two and impossible to hide.
• Whipstitch the disc to the shell edge, one stitch per stitch, working through the outer loops of both pieces.
• Work the rim trim round on that seam now, while you still have full access.
• Stuff the drum through the open end.
• Pin the second disc in place, again checking the alignment all the way round before sewing.
• Whipstitch it closed, adding a little more stuffing through the last inch of the gap.
• Work the second rim trim round.
• Add the tension lacing last. It sits over everything, including the seams, and it hides a multitude.
• Attach the hanging loop at the top seam.

Stuffing

• Firm. Firmer than you think. A drum is a rigid object and a soft drum looks like a hacky sack, so pack it until the shell wall stops giving under thumb pressure.
• The place this goes wrong is the ends. Over-stuffing pushes the flat heads into domes, and the moment a drumhead is convex the whole illusion dies. Fill the middle hard, then ease off in the last half inch at each end and press the head flat with your palm as you sew it. If a head has already domed, you can usually flatten it by taking a single anchoring stitch from the centre of the top disc down to the centre of the bottom one and pulling gently, which cinches both heads flat at once.
• The shell wall stays soft in one sense only — do not stuff so hard that the stitches gape and white fiberfill shows through the fabric. If that happens, you needed a smaller hook.

The Character Dial

Christmas gives you two clear directions with this one, and they are further apart than they look.

• Rustic. Undyed or oatmeal wool for the shell, unbleached cream for the heads, and jute twine instead of yarn for the tension lacing. Jute is stiff and slightly hairy and it makes the lacing look like actual rope, which is the single biggest upgrade available on this pattern. Skip the hanging loop and use a length of twine tied through instead. Work the rim in a brown one shade off the shell rather than a contrast, so the edges soften instead of outlining. A wooden bead threaded onto each end of the hanging twine finishes it. Rustic drums want to be slightly imperfect, so if a head sits a millimetre off centre, leave it — that reads as handmade rather than wrong.
• Bright. Scarlet shell, hard white heads, gold metallic for both the rim and the lacing. Everything sharp. Use a smaller hook than you would normally so the fabric is dense and the edges are crisp, because bright drums live or die on how clean the rim line is. Add a second row of surface stitch in gold just below the top rim, running horizontally, for a hardware band. Two miniature drumsticks made from painted toothpicks or a pair of chained yarn strands tied in a cross on the top head push this all the way into nutcracker territory — the source pattern has no drumsticks, so this is your own addition, but it is the one people ask about.
• The middle ground worth knowing about. A muted shell with a bright rim. Sage green with gold, or dusty blue with cream. It keeps the crispness of the bright version without committing the drum to a red-and-green shelf, which matters if you want it out in February.

Youtube

Colourways

• Brass Band. Antique gold shell, cream heads, oxblood rim and lacing. Reads as an instrument first and an ornament second, and stays out all year.
• Nutcracker Guard. Scarlet shell, bright white heads, gold rim, navy lacing. The most literal version. Best in a set of three at graduated sizes.
• Frosted Birch. Pale grey-brown shell, white heads, silver rim, white lacing. Almost monochrome. Photographs beautifully and disappears entirely on a white mantel, so give it a dark backdrop.
• Marching Band Navy. Deep navy shell, cream heads, mustard rim and lacing. The one nobody else on the shelf will have. Works especially well as a gift topper on brown kraft paper.

After the Season

Drums store worse than most amigurumi because their whole appeal is that they are rigid, and rigid things get crushed. Do not stack them or put anything on top of them in the box. Store them upright in a shallow container, side by side rather than piled, and if you have the space, put a layer of tissue between rows. The fiberfill will re-loft after a squashing but the surface lacing will not — flattened lacing goes slack and stays slack, and re-tensioning it means picking the whole zig-zag out. Keep them somewhere dry rather than a loft, since damp is what turns a white drumhead grey between one December and the next. Give the lacing a gentle pull with a yarn needle when they come out again and they will look new.

Quick Answers

• Can I make it bigger? Work the disc out to another round or two, count what you end on, and chain that number for the shell. The tube just has to match the disc. Everything else in the pattern stays the same, though a taller drum wants proportionally more height rounds or it starts looking like a tin.
• Do the heads have to be sewn on, or can I crochet them straight onto the tube? You can crochet the first one on directly by working the shell up from a base disc in the back loops only, and plenty of makers do. The catch is that the second head still has to be sewn, so you save half the seaming and lose the symmetry — the two ends will look slightly different up close. Sewing both keeps them matched.
• My lacing keeps pulling the shell inwards. What am I doing wrong? The stitches are too tight and probably going in before the drum was stuffed firmly enough. Stuff harder, then lace with a much looser hand than feels correct. The lacing should lie on the surface, not sink into it.