Sunday, August 15, 2010

More Elephants!

Jen sent me the cutest craft for this round.  I sense that she's loving elephants lately.  I can see why, these little guys are adorable.
effie & ollie by Heather Bailey


She bought fabrics from Heather Bailey's Nicey Jane line called "Wash Day Ticking-dandelion" and "Lindy Leaf-blue".  She also sent three options of felt colors for the embellishments.

I've never sewn anything from Heather Bailey's projects before, but these are great.  The directions are easy to follow, even if this was one of the more complicated sewing projects I've ever done.  I cut the pieces,
Looking like an elephant already!
and followed the piecing directions, attaching the ears to the head, the tail to the rear end, and then the most difficult part, pinned the side of the body to the underside, trunk gusset and body gusset.  Once the first side was done, these pieces held their shape better to pin to the second side.

First side sewn on, corners clipped


Second side pinned on, ready to sew!

Ready to be stuffed.
The only critique I have about this pattern is that at this point the directions tell you to go ahead and stuff ollie full of stuffing and sew him up.  The next step is to add french knots for his eyes.  I think you need to add the eyes BEFORE the stuffing goes in so that your knotted tail end of thread can be on the underside of the fabric.   Since I didn't read ahead (that's so like me with sewing projects, unfortunately) I ended up omitting his eyes.  But that's ok, because first of all, on one side the pattern of the fabric made it look like he has an eye:
See the little green eyebrow over the yellow eye?  Or am I the only weirdo out there?

And second of all, I'm using ollie as a pincushion instead of a toy, so:

At this point, I had "pink elephants on parade" stuck in my head

He kind of looks like a pink pearlized prehistoric pachyderm with those  pins on top.  Or maybe a punk pachyderm?



I love this!  I'm looking forward to sewing the second one from the blue fabric and making it effie, with the flowers behind her ears.

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15 comments:

  1. That is adorable!! I love the fabric you used - and the star on the side too!

    I'd love if you linked this project up to my Round Tuit party this week at:

    http://jembellish.blogspot.com/2010/08/round-tuit-10.html

    Have a great week!

    Jill @ Creating my way to Success

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  2. Absolutely and totally adorable! I love him!

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  3. Love it!!!! Hi... I'm your newest follower.

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  4. This is adorable! I love Heather Bailey's stuff and this is super cute!

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  5. Thanks, girls!

    Prickly Pachyderm! Love it!

    Jill, I'll head over and link up now. :)

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  6. It turned out very cute!
    Heather Baileys stuff is always adorable!

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  7. Your elephant is adorable! I love cute little projects like this!

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  8. I love this! Am in need of a new pin cushion too!

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  9. adorable! I love the colors you choose too!! :)

    ...visiting from Sassy Sites! I a new follower! Come by and say HI! I love your blog! It's such a SASSY site! :)

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  10. Love this, so cute :)

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  11. How adorable! Thanks so much for sharing this great pin cushion with us at Anything Related!
    {Rebekah}

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  12. So cute! I just love it...I may have to make one of these soon! Thanks for linking up to Mad Skills Monday!

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  13. Very cute. I'm getting sick of my blah tomato pin cushion & this one is now a new contender. Thanks for linking to Craftastic Monday:)

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  14. SO cute!!!! What an adorable elephant. It's just precious! Thanks for linking up to Topsy Turvy Tuesday!

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