FO: Elephant for Amelia

This is very much out of order, but it's been so long since I did a proper blog post that wasn't about a video and this is one that have photos of already, so you get to see it now :)

A girl I used to work with was having her first baby - a girl - so of course I had to make her a stuffed animal. The mom is obsessed with elephants, so I knew that would be a good choice.

This is the Peanut the Elephant pattern from Stacey Trock's book Crocheted Softies.  I made this pattern back in 2013 and gave it as a gift, and this is one of the first patterns in this book so it is designed to be very easy. It's really just circles and the only shaping is in the trunk. 

There is a little mouth beneath the trunk, which is very cute.

There is also a tiny tail - so cute. I used I Love This Yarn from Hobby Lobby in the Gray Mist colorway. I picked this because it's the color gray I had in my stash, but I wound up needing to buy another skein anyway, lol. Oh well, it's a very useful color for making animals.

I changed the shaping on the trunk just to give it a little more bend, but it honestly looks the same as the first one I made lol. 

And I gave her a bow since this is for a girl just to jazz things up a bit. This is just a tube of about 20 stitches around and 4 rows tall. I keep the yarn attached and did a few single crochet stitches until it was long enough to wrap around the center tightly, then I used the tails to sew it all on the elephant. Easy peasy. The bow was made of some ancient yarn I've had since high school and I have no idea what it is now.

I did baby safe felt eyes this time, which look a little bit surprised, but at least the baby won't choke. I just realized I should have embroidered eyelashes. Dang...

But here is the elephant with her lovely new owner. Isn't she adorable? I hope she grows to love her elephant with time especially since it has so many appendages to chew on. It was nice to make a crochet animal again after a long time, and now I kind of have the bug so I expect you'll be seeing more of them in the future again.

Crochet Update: Meet Louise!

So, my planned "productive Labor Day weekend" went pretty much nothing like I planned. I got a lot done cleaning-wise around the house on Saturday, plus I got to thrift at a few of my favorite stores I never get to go to. I planned to paint my living room Sunday, but ended up having a wave of unexplained illness. What to do instead? Crochet an elephant of course! Meet Louise!

I was so excited to finally make this little lady up. I used the Petrie the Dragon pattern from Monster's Toy Box. Yes you read that right, it's a dragon pattern. The same pattern I used to make Henrietta. I had the body made of my dragon and showed it to my husband and said, "Guess what it is!" and he said, "An Elephant!" After my initial disappointment that he didn't see it as a dragon, I realized he was totally right! If you flipped the body over and added a face, it would really look like an elephant. And the idea has stuck with me ever since.

When I imagined this guy, I knew I wanted to use a light purple yarn. This is SMC Worsted Weight with Wool yarn in Lilac. I used the same yarn in Taupe for the toe nails. I put 12mm safety eyes at round 23 and embroidered a black mouth between rows 25 and 26.

I free handed this tail. I started with a chain and ended up chaining 6. I left the last chain pulled out loose and added a few scraps of the yarn, then pulled it tight. To secure the yarn pieces, I wrapped the yarn around them all and then pulled the tail through like a knot. Those babies are there to stay.

For the nose, I stopped using the pattern when I had decreased down to 9 stitches. Then I sc3tog 3 times and pulled the knot through the center to secure it. This made for a nice flat spot to look more like a trunk.

I'm seriously loving how this little lady came out. She's so cute and friendly looking. My nephew particularly likes the long nose because he can use it as a handle, lol. Incidentally I've already come up with yet another animal I can make using this pattern :) I can't wait to make it!

Crochet Update: Jungle Friends Finger Puppet Gang

So a friend of mine (the father of two of my favorite little people) asked me at the beginning of August if I could make some finger puppets for a project he was working on for his kids. The kids and mom were on vacation until August 28th, and he wanted it to be a surprise for when they came home. He told me it was Noah's Ark themed, so any animals would do. Needless to say I jumped at the request :) I immediately got busy searching for finger puppet patterns. The only ones I could find that were doable turned out to be this jungle animal set:

This is the collection I came up with :) I ended up with a zebra, a lion, a lioness, 2 monkeys and an elephant. I used free patterns from Moogly that I found through Ravelry for the lions, the monkeys and the zebra. I tried to use another free pattern for an elephant, but it was really not well written and no matter how hard I tried I could not get it to come out. So I just free-handed one. I like how the ears and nose came out, but I just couldn't get the eyes to not look angry. That's why I only made one, lol. The zebra took me about 3 hours to make, no joke. That's why there's only one of those.

Overall, I'm really happy with how this little collection came out. I let my nephew test them out just to make sure they were ok with the kiddos and he loved them, so I take that as a success :) He liked them so much that I think I'll have to make some more for him. I just hope my other little guys like them as much!

Knitting Update: My Wee Ones Knitted Elephant

After finishing the Punkin' Hat, I needed a new project to occupy my nights at my in-laws' house. So I decided to finally tackle the Wee Ones Seamless Knit Toys Craftsy Class. I've had this class for quite a while and just never took the plunge. Now that I have the Not So Itty-Bitty Giraffe under my belt, I feel a little invincible with knitted toys lol. It was a great confidence builder, for real. So I figured, "I finished that big guy, how hard could a little one be?" Pretty hard as it turns out - not so hard that it was insurmountable, just hard enough to have to keep watching the class to learn how to do everything. I stuck with it all weekend and I am really loving the results:

The class includes the pattern.instructions for 3 animals: an elephant, a bunny and a hippo. Since the first one she shows the particulars about in the class is the elephant, I decided it would be easiest if I started there as well. The coolest part about this animal is that it ends up being one solid knitted item - none of his parts are sewn on after you make them, you actually pick up stitches and knit each piece onto the previous one. 

You start with the head, then add the ears, then the body, then the arms, legs, tail and eyes. I finished the whole head Saturday night, the body was complete by the end of Sunday (minus one leg), and the final leg with the tail and eyes I did on Monday.

I used Patons Canadiana yarn in Gray that I picked up at a local thrift store a while back. Incidentally I used the same yarn on my crocheted elephant too :) Look at his cute little tail!

I am really happy I took this class to make these because I really learned a lot of new techniques while making this guy. I didn't think there could be so many things to learn on something so small, but even with making my giraffe I still had never done the following things before:

• seamless knitting
• picking up stitches (correctly - I tried once before but apparently I didn't do it right)
• i-cord
• after thought limbs
• putting stitches on scrap yarn
• reversing a pattern, a.k.a. mirroring (this wasn't taught by the class, but I had to figure it out myself to get the ears to look right).

I think you'll agree, that's a lot of new techniques packed into such a small item.The picture above it how my elephant looked after the body was finished - he's an amputee! I will say that since this is my first time trying out so many new things, this isn't my best looking animal. His stitches are uneven in places (it's so hard to keep tension with so few stitches on your needles and I ended up with ladders in some spots). Considering that it was my first try though, I am really pleased with him. He looks like an elephant, so that's good, and my nephew immediately reached for him when I showed him, so I take that as a success.

I no joke spent at least 30 minutes on the eyes, lol, I would stitch them on and just not like them so I pulled them out over and over. I'm happy with them now though, so I don't really mind that extra bit of time to make him look nice.

I give the Wee Ones Seamless Knit Toys class 5 out of 5 stars. It is packed full of info and new techniques and you really have no need to be afraid to try them since you have the pattern designer there to show you every step of the way! It makes it so much easier than if you were just using the pattern - honestly I don't think I could have made this without the class. At least it would not look anywhere near this good if I had tried it alone. If you are new to knitting toys like me, I highly recommend the class. This little elephant really built up my confidence and now I feel like I can tackle most any animals I want to make. I can;t wait to make the bunny and the hippo now!