Pattern: Elefante by Susan B. Anderson
Maybe I’m biased, but isn’t he adorable??! Modifications:
- Knitted ears. I followed Susan’s instructions which can be found here. I used kfb to increase instead of m1. I also slipped stitch the first stitch of every row.
- Sewed the elephant’s head a bit higher up so it looks cuter in my opinion. Also, I think the elephant looks happier and more optomistist than looking at the ground. Plus I think this makes him look like he’s a baby elephant.
- Curly tail! I cast on using the long tail method (leaving a long end so I can use it later). Knit i-cord for about an inch, and then cast off. Sew cast off side to the elephant’s body. Then using the long leftover end of your cast on, threat that through a needle, thread the needle through the icord that you just knitted, then pull so that the tail shorters and then securely sew it to the body.
- Just used grey and pink for the elephant. Made a solid elephant instead of a stripey one like the pattern.
Made this for Jim for Valentine’s Day 2010 because of a special memory we have. I mouthed out “elephant shoe” to him once, and then he said “I love you” for the first time because he thought I mouthed out “I love you”. Haha I’m such a trickster! Of course, I said “I love you too!”. We also have another inside joke about elephants, but that’s a whole other story!
The pattern was very easy and simple to follow. I made the elephant with using just grey and pink instead of doing multi-coloured stripes. The pattern is provided for free by the generous designer. I highly recommend this pattern because it is a quick knit and it produces a very cute result!
I used Wool-Ease Solids & Heathers for the first time. I was very pleased with it for this project. It has a bit of fuzz to it which I love because I wanted the elephant to be a tiny bit fuzzy and did not want perfect stitch definition. I think it’s great for a project like this, not sure if I would use it to make a sweater. Maybe a hat or mitts.
Used scraps of Cascade wool for the pink part of the elephant’s legs. Funny that this Cascade wool was given to me last year by Jim for Valentine’s Day to make this, and now I’m using it to make his Valentine’s gift! I love Cascade wool :)
