Elephant dreams...

Why hello here!

I am so sorry I've been absent... and so soon after starting this little blog! What can I say? Work has been bonkers busy leaving me with very little time for yarny endeavours. The few knitting projects that I have found time for are winging their way across the world as part of swap packages so I didn't feel right writing about them yet. On top of it all, the Sydney summer has hit and in the heat and humidity,  playing with yarn hasn't been high on the priority list...

Luckily, I have found another little creative outlet lately... making these little guys!

Elephants are my absolute favourite so I was totally smitten by this pattern. It's the Effie and Ollie pattern by Heather Bailey.  I bought it at a beautiful little sewing shop in Milton, NSW but it's also available online here. The fabric came from my stash, I think they were both originally from Spotlight. The pattern says you need fat quarters but I just used some leftovers... They are also reasonably quick to sew up. The little elephant made of polka dot fabric (named Dotty) took me about 2 or 3 hours... the pink one, probably a little less...

As these little guys are my first tentative attempts at hand sewing, they're absolutely riddled with mistakes and little "ugly bits". I'm still learning to make my stitches even and the importance of carefully lining the pieces up properly before sewing them together. I also found sewing something 3 dimensional to be a little bit of a challenge (especially as I'm still very new to sewing)! You can see how the stitches on the head aren't very even and want to pop out and there's also some insighly puckering but if you look past that (and the crummy smartphone pictures) they're pretty irresistably cute (if I do say so myself)!

These are quick, easy and adorable. I can definitely see myself making many many more in future. Maybe a set of four made into a baby mobile as a baby shower gift? For now, we'll start with one... this squishy little guy is going to live with a colleague of mine, one who's been having elephant dreams since she first saw a picture of Dotty on Facebook :)

Bye for now,
B