Ellie the Elephant

Back at the start of September, I announced the giveaway winners for my most recent blogging milestone giveaway. I was really, really pleased to pull Renee's name out of the hat as it meant I got to make a present for her adorable Little Man.

Renee's son features quite heavily in her blog posts, and he has to be the cutest kid I have ever seen. Seriously, you should go check him out, especially the photos of him in a tux on the cruise ship. Such a cheeky smile!

I decided to use up some of the fantastic cotton stash I got from Kate when she was getting rid of her blanket leftovers, and crochet up a cute stuffed toy I'd been wanting to hook for ages. The pattern was in a crochet pattern collection I bought last year; I've been holding out on making it until I had nice yarn to do it with, as I didn't fancy using my fall back dk acrylics for this one.

The pattern photos have one blue and one pink elephant, but I didn't want to be so gender-specific in my colour choices. I found four colours that went together really well, settling on yellows and greens with a bit of pale blue thrown in for contrast.

Project Notes

Pattern: Noodle the Elephant by Irene Strange (available for download for $4/approx £2.50)

Yarn: Rico Creative Cotton

Hook: 3.5mm

Additional materials: A circle of fabric, toy stuffing

I had a few mishaps at first through not reading the pattern properly, but soon got the hang of it and on the whole, it worked up quickly. I used pale coloured felt rather than fabric as the pattern suggests, partly because it's all I had and partly because the colour worked really well underneath the yarn I'd chosen.

I was very pleased with the finished elephant, and proudly displayed it on my shelf for a couple of days before packaging it up to send off to America with the Zauberball that was the actual prize (and a bar of chocolate, because I know Renee loves proper, British Cadbury Dairy Milk).

When I got home from the post office, I realised I'd forgotten to take a photo of it!!! I didn't even have a WIP shot to put on Ravelry, I'd completed it so quickly...

A quick messsage to Renee later, and she's very kindly emailed me some snaps to share.

Apparently, it had barely made it out of the parcel before Little Man got his hands on it, and claimed it for his own. He calls it "Ellie" (his way of saying elephant) so that is what I have named my project on Ravelry!

I'm so glad Little Man loved his present! And thanks again to Renee for sharing the photos (snapped quickly with her phone, in a brief moment when she was able to get it away from her son!).