Funny Crochet Toilet Paper Cover Patterns: The Quirky Craft Project Your Bathroom Deserves
Let’s talk about something that doesn’t get nearly enough attention in the crafting world: the humble toilet paper cover. Specifically, the kind that makes your guests do a double-take, stifle a laugh, or pull out their phone to take a picture before they even think about why they walked into the bathroom in the first place. Funny crochet toilet paper cover patterns have been making bathrooms more interesting since your grandmother first put a crocheted doll on the back of her toilet, and honestly? The tradition deserves a modern revival.
Whether you’re a seasoned crocheter looking for a fun weekend project, a beginner ready to try something more exciting than your twelfth dishcloth, or someone who simply wants their bathroom to spark joy and a little bit of laughter, this guide has everything you need to get started. We’re going to cover pattern ideas, yarn choices, humor styles, sizing tips, and all the little tricks that separate a great toilet paper cover from one that just sort of sits there looking confused.
Why Funny Crochet Toilet Paper Cover Patterns Deserve a Spot in Your Home
Before we dive into the patterns themselves, let’s take a moment to appreciate the artform. Toilet paper covers have a long and glorious history in American homes, particularly in the mid-twentieth century when it was practically a law that every bathroom had to contain at least one crocheted item that vaguely resembled either a flower or a Victorian doll. The doll cover — that iconic design where a crocheted skirt hides a spare roll of toilet paper while a plastic doll torso poses on top — is the undisputed queen of this genre.
But the genre has evolved. Today’s funny crochet toilet paper cover patterns lean into the humor more deliberately. We’re talking gnomes with wild yarn beards, tiny crocheted animals mid-conversation, little monsters with googly eyes, and enough puns worked into the design concepts that you could fill a greeting card section. These aren’t accidents of taste. They’re intentional, joyful, and genuinely clever little pieces of functional art.
There’s also a practical dimension that people tend to overlook. Toilet paper covers keep an extra roll handy without making it look like you’re storing inventory in your bathroom. They protect the roll from dust and moisture. They add a pop of color to a room that often gets the least decorating attention in the house. And when the design is funny, they give every guest a small, unexpected moment of delight. That’s not nothing. In a world that can feel pretty heavy sometimes, a crocheted gnome holding your spare toilet paper on a little crocheted throne is a genuine gift to everyone who uses your bathroom.
Getting Started: What You Need Before You Pick Up Your Hook
Starting a toilet paper cover project doesn’t require a huge investment, which is part of what makes it such a satisfying craft. Here’s what you’ll want to have on hand before you begin.
Yarn: For most toilet paper covers, you’ll want a worsted weight yarn. It works up quickly, has good stitch definition so your funny details actually read clearly, and it’s easy to find in a huge range of colors. If you’re making something with a lot of texture — a shaggy monster, a fluffy animal, a gnome with a giant beard — you might want to grab some bulkier yarn or specialty yarn for those specific details. Acrylic yarn is a great choice for bathroom items because it’s easy to wash, holds its shape well, and comes in every color imaginable.
Hooks: A 5mm (H/8) hook is a reliable starting point for worsted weight yarn, but always check your gauge if the pattern calls for a specific finished size. Most toilet paper cover patterns are designed to fit a standard roll, which is roughly 4.5 inches in diameter and about 4.5 inches tall. If you’re going off-pattern or improvising, those are the dimensions you’re working around.
Extras: Most funny designs require a few embellishments beyond just yarn. Googly eyes are almost non-negotiable if you’re making any kind of creature cover — they’re cheap, they come in multiple sizes, and they transform a plain crocheted lump into a character with a personality. You’ll also want yarn needles for weaving in ends, scissors, stitch markers if you’re working in the round, and possibly some polyester fiberfill if you’re creating a 3D head or character that needs a little stuffing to hold its shape.
Optional but wonderful: wire armatures for poses, felt for small details like teeth or accessories, fabric glue, and a healthy sense of humor about the whole enterprise.
Funny Crochet Toilet Paper Cover Pattern Ideas That Actually Make People Laugh
Now we get to the good part. Here are some of the best funny crochet toilet paper cover designs to inspire your next project, ranging from beginner-friendly to more involved.
The Classic Gnome Cover
Gnomes are having a serious cultural moment, and for good reason. They’re inherently whimsical, they translate beautifully into crochet, and the toilet paper roll makes for a perfect gnome body. The basic concept: crochet a wide, conical skirt around the roll (this is the body), add a pointed hat on top (this can be a separate crocheted piece attached at the top), and create a small face featuring just a big nose and a wild yarn beard because that’s really all a gnome needs in terms of facial features.
The humor here comes from the unexpected scale and context. A gnome standing guard over your toilet paper is exactly the kind of thing that makes someone pause mid-reach and actually smile. You can customize the beard color (gray for a wise old gnome, bright orange for a feisty one, rainbow yarn for a gnome who is really living his best life), and you can add tiny accessories like a crocheted mushroom or a little sign that says something like “1 sheet per visit” if you’re feeling cheeky.
The Grumpy Cat Cover
A cat sitting on top of a toilet paper roll, looking profoundly unimpressed with everything, is both deeply relatable and deeply funny. The design typically involves crocheting the body of a cat around the roll (a cylinder shape works well, tapering slightly at the top), creating a separate head with exaggerated features — wide eyes, flattened ears, a downturned mouth — and attaching it on top. You can work in stripes for a tabby look, or go solid gray, white, or orange depending on your preference.
The key to making this funny rather than just cute is in the face. Lean into the grumpy expression. Make those eyes heavy-lidded. Make that mouth a definitive frown. Add tiny felt eyebrows furrowed in irritation. If you want to push the humor further, you can attach a tiny crocheted sign that says something bathroom-appropriate but still family-friendly, like “Do NOT disturb” or “Still judging you.”
The Monster Cover
Monsters are endlessly fun to crochet because the design parameters are completely open. Your monster can have one eye or six. It can have horns or tentacles or both. It can be any color you want because monsters don’t exist in nature and therefore have no natural color requirements. The base of the pattern is essentially a simple cylinder with a few extra rounds to create a top opening, and from there you add whatever makes your monster look convincingly monstrous and authentically ridiculous.
Googly eyes are essential here. The bigger the better. If you have a monster with four huge googly eyes of different sizes, you’ve already won. Add some spike stitches or loop stitches for texture, give it a mouth with felt teeth, maybe a little forked yarn tongue, and you have something that is genuinely funny without requiring any real advanced crochet skills.
The Toilet Paper Roll That Knows It’s a Toilet Paper Roll
This one is a bit more conceptual but incredibly funny when executed well. The idea is to crochet a cover that includes the toilet paper roll itself as part of the joke. For example: a crocheted hand reaching up from below the roll (attached at the bottom), as if a tiny person is desperately offering the paper to whoever needs it. Or a crocheted face on the front of the cover with a speech bubble made from felt that says something like “I live here now” or “We’re almost out, just so you know.”
The humor in these designs is meta — the cover is in on the joke of its own existence. These tend to be conversation starters because guests will often come out of the bathroom wanting to tell you about the funny toilet paper thing they just saw.
The Holiday and Seasonal Covers
Seasonal toilet paper covers are a genuinely fun tradition to start. A Halloween cover can be a crocheted jack-o-lantern or a mummy wrap design with googly eyes peeking out. A Christmas cover that’s a tiny crocheted Santa works beautifully because the roll becomes his round belly (extremely appropriate). An Easter egg design is simple and colorful. A Valentine’s Day cover shaped like a little pink heart creature is both romantic and absurd in the best possible way.
The seasonal angle also means you always have a reason to start a new project, which is great news if you’re the kind of crafter who needs external motivation to cast on something new.
Tips for Writing or Adapting Your Own Funny Crochet Toilet Paper Cover Pattern
If you’re not following an existing pattern and want to create your own funny design, here are some principles that make the difference between a design that reads as intentionally funny and one that reads as accidentally strange.
Commit to the concept. If your cover is supposed to be a grumpy cat, make it unambiguously grumpy. If it’s a gnome, give it a legitimately impressive beard. Half-measures in humor don’t work. The joke lands when the execution is confident and clear.
Use contrast for comic effect. One of the reasons the doll-skirt cover has endured is the contrast between the formal, elegant skirt and the humble function of hiding a toilet paper roll. You can use this same principle deliberately. A tiny tuxedo on a monster. A tiara on a blob creature. A tiny briefcase accessory on a gnome. Contrast between the dignified and the absurd is a reliable engine for humor.
Get the face right. In any character design, the face does the most work. Oversized features read more clearly and are usually funnier. Tiny, proportionally correct features tend to look cute rather than funny. Go bigger than you think you need to on the eyes, the nose, the mouth. The exaggeration is the point.
Test your gauge before committing. This is true of all crochet, but especially relevant for toilet paper covers because the whole design depends on the cover actually fitting over the roll. Measure your roll before you start. Crochet a test swatch. Make sure your base round will expand to the right diameter before you invest hours into a detailed character design that turns out to be sized for a paper towel roll instead.
Leave room for embellishment. If you’re designing your own pattern, build in some plain real estate on the body of the cover for felt details, googly eyes, or other additions. A completely textured cover can be hard to add things to cleanly. A smooth section gives you a canvas.
Displaying Your Finished Cover (And Talking About It When Guests Mention It)
Once your funny crochet toilet paper cover is finished, the placement matters. The spare roll should sit comfortably inside or under the cover, with the crocheted character or design facing the door so it’s the first thing someone sees when they walk in. If your bathroom has a back-of-toilet shelf, that’s the prime real estate. If not, a small decorative tray on the tank works well and keeps the cover from sliding around.
Guests will mention it. This is essentially guaranteed if the design is good. When they do, the correct response is enthusiastic ownership. “I made that.” Three words that are both true and genuinely impressive. Crochet is a skill, making something funny requires both creativity and intentionality, and the combination of the two in an unexpected location creates a memorable effect. Own it completely.
If you share your work on social media, bathroom humor (of the clean variety) performs well on crafting platforms. Photos of funny crochet toilet paper covers do particularly well on Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook crafting groups. Use clear, bright lighting and a tidy bathroom background. The design should be the star of the image.
Where to Find Funny Crochet Toilet Paper Cover Patterns
If you’re looking for existing patterns rather than designing your own, there are several excellent places to search. Ravelry is the largest database of crochet and knitting patterns in the world, and a search for “toilet paper cover” turns up hundreds of options ranging from the straightforwardly decorative to the genuinely bizarre. Etsy has a robust selection of both free and paid downloadable patterns, including many character designs and themed covers. Pinterest is excellent for visual inspiration even when it doesn’t lead directly to a pattern — seeing what others have made often sparks ideas you can develop yourself.
YouTube is particularly useful if you’re a visual learner who prefers to follow along with video rather than written instructions. Searching for “crochet toilet paper cover tutorial” will surface a range of skill levels and styles, and many creators are happy to answer questions in the comments.
Crafting blogs and websites dedicated to crochet often publish free patterns, especially around holidays when seasonal designs are popular. Bookmarking a few reliable crafting blogs means you’ll have a steady supply of new patterns to try throughout the year.
The Final Word on Funny Crochet Toilet Paper Covers
Here’s the thing about funny crochet toilet paper cover patterns: they sit at this wonderful intersection of usefulness, artistry, and humor that very few craft projects manage to occupy all at once. A blanket is useful. A piece of wall art is artistic. A funny greeting card is humorous. But a crocheted gnome standing solemn guard over your spare toilet paper roll manages to be all three simultaneously, and it does it in about forty square inches of bathroom space.
That’s genuinely impressive. And it’s a reminder that craft doesn’t have to be serious to be worthwhile. Some of the most technically interesting crochet you’ll ever do is in the details of a character cover — the shaping of a nose, the construction of tiny ears, the way you have to think in three dimensions about how a face will read from across a bathroom. These are real skills being applied to a hilarious purpose, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
So pick a pattern that makes you laugh. Buy some googly eyes. Choose a yarn color that feels right for your monster or gnome or grumpy cat. And add a little unexpected joy to the most overlooked room in your home. Your guests will notice, and more importantly, they will definitely not forget your bathroom.
Happy crocheting. May your gauge be true and your beard yarn be impressively fluffy.
