Baby elephants, Simplicity 2921

It's been stressful at work with a high maintenance client.  So much so that one of my colleagues jokes, "Melissa, I'm not going to have a cow, I'm going to have an elephant!"  Hence, the idea for baby elephants.  I figured this would be an easy gag gift, as Simplicity patterns were on sale last weekend for $0.99, and I had the gray flannel left over from pajama pants I made for Lee (sorry, I've been terrible at blogging, even something as easy as pajama pants.)

I chose this pattern because it had more than two pattern pieces.  McCall has a toy elephant pattern, and there's another Simplicity elephant pattern as well, but when I looked at them, I figured they would be hard to shape because they only have two pieces. 

When I made the first elephant, Lee said immediately snatched him away and named him Elvis.  He's on the left.  So I had to make another one for my colleague.  He's on the right.  Lee's calling him Chunk because he's so plump. 

Elvis was going to be completely scrap (he was stuffed with Thinsulate batting left over from making a winter coat for another friend a few years ago) but I had to buy new polyfill stuffing for the new elephant.  Now I have half a bag of stuffing leftover, and no one else to make elephants for!

Surprisingly, the polyfill was harder to stuff with than the batting.  The newer elephant ended up plumper than Elvis, and Lee insists I must open Elvis up to stuff him more.

L-R: Elvis, Chunk.  Note I did not fold Elvis' ears over.  This means that you can flop his ears towards his face, which Lee likes doing.  Not an intentional design decision, but one that turned out well.

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Awww.

In all, this is a pretty easy pattern to make up.  Most of the work is stuffing the darned thing, and if you don't go gangbusters like I did on Chunk it shouldn't take the better part of an hour to stuff and suture one up.  Cutting and sewing took only an hour and a half, some of the seams are fiddly because the pieces are so small, but this is a satisfying thing to sew up.  I'm impressed with this design - I did not expect their little faces to fill out so cutely!