Soft Toy Elephant

As you probably already know by now I like making toys and last month when I found a book about making soft toys I knew I had to start planning for some serious toy making! The book is from the 70's but these models doesn't get out of fashion which is great.

The pattern pieces for these toys were drawn in miniature size on squared paper in the book and I had to do my own squared paper were each square was 2,5 cm *2,5 cm to get the natural size. Then I tried to copy the drawings of all pattern pieces the best I could on my own natural sized squared paper.
It was a new way for me to get the pattern ready, I have only used Burda patterns before and there you don't have to re-size anything or draw by hand, so this was exciting and fun!

I chose the elephant pattern because I thought it was so very cute. I calculated how big the final toy would be and thought it might get too big so I chose to make my squares 1,5 cm instead of 2,5 cm. That resulted in the little elephant you see in the pictures. It was a little tricky to sew and then turn the fabric inside out, especially around the trunk area, so I decided to make one more elephant in the original size which resulted in the big elephant in the pictures. I think they both turned out good and I am pleased with them both. The filling is a white fluffy 100% polyester fuzz, but according to the book small pieces of cloths is good to use too.

Knitted Flying Kite Elephant

The circus goes on with my new hobby, the knitted soft animals! And not are they only cute animals - they are kind of loony too! Watch out for this guy, Kenny, the flying kite elephant, who got tired of being related to the world's heaviest animals and made his dream come true to fly! When I took the photos of him for this post he was just all over the place! I had a tough time making him be still for just a couple of seconds to get some nice shots of him in his new kite uniform.

Kenny is the soft animal proof of that you really can make your dreams come true even if your dreams are a bit "out of the box". He wanted to fly so very much, be free like a bird, but he didn't have any wings or feathers like the birds have. One day he saw a kite high up in the sky and he knew it was the answer to his problem. Now he flies all day long playing follow the leader with his new bird friends, and the bright colors of his kite uniform shines in the sun!

 Kenny is made of acrylic yarn and I have constructed the pattern myself. It took about two weeks to make him and now he and his moose buddy Sven with the red pants is having a blast together.