Circus Elephant Stuffed Animal

Gerrard, the friendly circus elephant wants to play! 

I caved and purchased several more pattern books from my now favorite author. You'll see more plushies over the coming months as I tackle some more of her projects.

This adorable elephant was actually supposed to be part of a family that lived in a peanut. But man, these little stuffed animals take a lot of time and hand sewing to complete! I admit I lost patience after making just one.

I think he turned out super cute, I love his flappy, soft ears.

He is also safe for small children because his eyes, cheeks and mounth are all embroidered. No buttons to pose a choking hazard.

My only gripe is that tracing the pattern onto the fabric was difficult. I wound up just tracing it in pen on the wrong side of the fabric because chalk can't capture the all details and simply rubs off. I looked at the fabric store for another solution but there didn't seem to be many other options; the fabric markers' packaging all said that the ink was not guaranteed to wash off. Great.

The pattern also called to do the embroidery once the elephant was pieced together and turned right-side out. (I admit I had to give up on the satin stitch, that wasn't going anywhere). But how are you supposed to knot and hide your loose ends unless you start on the wrong side of the fabric? And in that case, you'd have to do the mouth and eyes before it was pieced together. If anyone has any insights, please let me know in the comments below.

I didn't want to deal with all the embroidery on the blanket, so I used fusible web to appliqué the star on. Another lesson learned is that three layers of fusible web are hard to get a needle through.

But over all I think he's adorable. If you would like to claim him for your own, he's available on the Fancy-Free Crafts Etsy store (shortly).