Pi and pi are here to emcee your Pi Day celebration, hang out on your desk, indoctrinate small children into geekdom, or be prizes in math competitions. There is no sewing in either pattern – they are entirely crocheted together and all shaping is from crochet stitches.

In addition to your hook and up to a half ounce (14 g) of fiberfill, you’ll need around 1.25 oz (35 g) yarn for Big little pi (larger, lowercase), and around 0.75 oz (21 g) yarn for Little Big Pi (smaller, uppercase).

This pattern includes an improved write-up of the little big Pi pattern available separately. As with that pattern, big little pi’s legs are stitched directly onto openings left in the top bar. Directions are given to leave the top bar unstuffed until the legs are finished, to aid in bending the bar (and first leg, when stitching the second) out of the way.

The pointed foot and “horn” of the top bar curve through a combination of increasing or decreasing and a method I developed to collapse pairs of rounds into single rounds on the inside of the curve. The stitching takes some paying attention, but it isn’t difficult and all stitches are common (very common, in fact: slip stitch and single crochet).

Note that the plump foot ends with a 10-stitch round. This will close without any difficulty if you use a running stitch through the front loops, but may be a bit large for some methods.

The Big little pi pattern can be adapted to make a tau instead (pictured in brown). Instructions for that are available on my blog.