Chocolate for Elephants?

While there was some chocolate consumed at last week's craft club meeting, the focus was much more on the elephants.  This month's craft was an adorable pin cushion pattern from Heather Bailey called Effie & Ollie Elephant.  When the girls and I were shopping at the sewing expo a few weeks ago they discovered these little guys in jumbo form in one of the vendor's booths.  He didn't have any more of the pattern so I ended up ordering it on Amazon.  Everyone was super excited about making these seemingly easy little guys.  WARNING This was not a good pattern for a bunch of mostly beginner/novice sewers.

The problems started early and a fair amount of cussing and stabbing with pins transpired as we assembled these little guys.  I was a little behind at the start since almost everyone else had cut out their pieces before coming over but I caught up pretty quick when there were more than a few stumped faces on a couple of the steps.  Now, if you've done stuffed animals before you won't have much of a problem, however if this is your first go around I would choose a more simple pattern.  Unless of course you want to experience what we did with all the cussing and pin stabbing.

Crafters were dropping like flies.  Katy had been awake since 3:30 that morning, Laura's frustration had manifested in multiple uses of the seem ripper and I'm not sure when we lost Sarah but she joined the other two in temporary defeat.  Kelly and I had chosen to do the original size of the pattern as a pin cushion and we were determined to not be beaten by this pint sized pachyderm.  

I'm not sure what time it was when we finished but there was some forceful polyfill stuffing towards the end.

Maybe it was the comfort food themed potluck or the warm temp that night that was making us sluggish but I'm glad I finished.  I have to say, even though it was a task to get her done, I love my little elephant girl.  I especially love the glittery gold flowers on her ears.  She has been used heavily in the five days I've had her and even took a trip to a craft fair this weekend.

Lesson?  Just because something is hard doesn't mean it won't be worth the process in the end.  

The dogs were both in agreement and volunteered for a little photo op of the finished products.  

Craft on!

Anita

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