Today, two twin elephants joined the world (fraternal, not identical). I made these two elephants as gifts following the pattern for "Peanut, the wee elephant" by Hillary Lang of Wee Wonderfuls, as published in Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson. The last time I made one of these elephants (these are my third and fourth), a reader of my blog asked me to take pictures illustrating each of the steps the next time I made an elephant. It is with permission from both Hillary Lang and Joelle Hoverson, that I am sharing these photos:
Step 4. Assemble Body
Belly
Under-Trunk, Belly, and Back
Sides
Step 5. Close Trunk
Step 6. Turn Right Side Out
I didn't photograph this step but my hint for a successful elephant is to stuff and stuff and stuff some more. There is nearly always room for a little more stuffing. I also stitch back and forth a couple of times at the opening.
Step 7. Make Ears
Step 8. Make Blanket
After three elephants, I decided that this was the most difficult step of all. The blanket is simply too cute to skip but if you iron under the 1/2" seam on your two blanket pieces and then line them up, you will find that it is very hard to make this precise. For the fourth elephant, I decided to put my blanket pieces right sides together and stitched about a 1/2" from the edge, leaving an opening. I turned and hand stitched the opening. I think that the blanket looks a lot neater and I am more happy with it this way.
Step 9
For my tails, because I don't have a lot of yarn but do have a lot of embroidery floss, I use 12 strands of embroidery floss per tail, divided into groups of 4 for braiding. Here is a close up of the tail shot (mostly because it is cute!)
Thank you so much doing this. I'll try the elephant again with your photographs as a guide. Thanks!
ReplyDeletewow! thank you for that.. i think i will try to make one now as well - i have a similar pattern..... doesnt look that hard anymore thanks to your pictures ^^
ReplyDeleteThanks! I have the book, but never made it to make a wee elephant!
ReplyDeleteThese are just sooo cute!! I need to make more "stuffies"!! Great pics!
ReplyDeleteThese are so cute!
ReplyDeleteSooooo adorable!! I have this book and this is one of my favorites that I have yet to try!
ReplyDeleteSoooo cute!
ReplyDeleteThese little elephants are just adorable! My dad used to always tell me stories about elephants as a kid. I had several stuffed elephants, but none as cute as these. Good work!
ReplyDeleteThis was very helpful today, Thank you! I am making one of these elephants for my six month old son for Christmas . . . just doing the hand sewing tonight after babies are in bed and I'm done!
ReplyDeleteBest,
Sarah
thank you so much for these visuals, i REALLY appreciate it! i just couldn't figure out the belly section and how it fit with the sides, but after seeing your step by step photos, it all makes sense.
ReplyDeletecheers,
Alana:)
Thank you for posting this. I got this book from the library and I was so excited to see this little elephant - and so disappointed when I realized the templates were missing from the back of the book. I'm going to try to recreate him based on your pictures. Here's to hoping...
ReplyDeleteYou are an angel! I've been so frustrated with the instructions in the book for this project. I almost gave up until I found your step-by-step pictures! Thank you so much! The instructions make no sense, but your photos are very clear!
ReplyDeleteMany thanks for fabulous photos! The instructions in the book for attaching trunk underside and back to belly are absolutely hopeless. You are very clever work it out.
ReplyDeleteoh my goodness, thank you so much! was making this for tonight and almost tossed the whole thing away! :)
ReplyDeleteDo you sell these?
ReplyDeleteDo you sell these?
ReplyDeleteNo, I am sorry but I do not.
Deletethanks so much for this! i made one of these elephants a few years ago, but this time around, i couldn't make sense of the instructions. so grateful for the pics!
ReplyDelete