Giving Stuffed Animals a Try

Since I haven't been out yarn shopping in a few months (thanks to COVID 19) I had been looking at smaller projects. Ones that I could use yarn that I just happened to have around. Right now I have a lot of yarn, so why not try to use up my stash before buying yarn. 

Well around the first month or so of lock down I saved a cute knitted stuffed bear. It was a small project and would be great for using up leftover yarn. A stuffed bear could be any color of the rainbow. It could even be a multicolored bear. If any of you know how Pinterest works you know that right after you save one item you will be shown a thousand and one similar items. All of a sudden I am overwhelmed by the sheer number of stuffed animal projects. There were more than just bears. There were bunnies, foxes, dogs, giraffes, lions and more. And this was just scratching the surface. I am sure that if I were to dig a little deeper I'd find a whole zoo of animals. There are even books devoted to stuffed animals.     

The animal that finally made me decide to give stuffed animals a try were the elephants. After picking the type of creature I wanted to knit, I now had to find a pattern. All of the elephant patterns were cute. However, I was looking for the perfect combination of adorable and free. 

After looking for a bit I found "Bloomsbury the Elephant" by Amanda Berry. Bloomsbury was originally published in a 2016 issue of a magazine called "Knit Now". This magazine and thousands like it can now be found online for free. Some of them are just nice to browse through and look at the different patterns. Although not all of the items are up to date. If you are interested in looking at other publications like this I would recommend going to the Internet Archive. I would not recommend this site if you are looking for a specific type of pattern. But it is great if you are looking for inspiration or a more generic pattern like a sweater or scarf.           

Initially the picture that I had in my mind was that I would make an elephant that would go with this blanket. I would use the same light gray and it would be the perfect set for a new baby or an expecting mother. Right now I know a lot of women who are expecting or recently gave birth. However, these plans quickly fell apart when I realized I no longer had any of this yarn left. These few balls of yarn were all that was left from this project.

But, I was not going to allow this to stop me. I have other gray yarn I could use. Now my only concern was that it still would not be enough. It tends to be harder to gauge when you are using left over yarn. The pattern calls for 100 grams of yarn. I would have no idea where to start to determine if the yarn I have is enough. I didn't want to risk it. Start knitting and find out part way through the last foot that I didn't have enough yarn. 

So I came up with a plan to make the elephant look like it was wearing a shirt. I picked out this kelly green that I had used on a different baby project years ago. To me all colors can be baby colors. Why limit babies to just pastels when there is a wide rage of colors out there? I loved the way that the green pops when next to this darker gray. 

It was not until I was almost finished with this little guy that I realized I had seen a different elephant wearing this same shade of green. Babar the elephant created by Jean de Brunhoff is often dressed in a vibrant green suit. Maybe somewhere deep in my sub-conscience fictional elephants are paired with this shade of green. 

And now I have a little green dressed elephant. One of my favorite parts about this little elephant is that he can sit upright on his own. I for one think he is ready for story time.