Saturday 14 November 2009

Who says elephants can't be orange!



This fellow follows on from my penguin that I designed earlier in my Art & Fashion class. I just tweaked the penguin patters, making the body section a little shorter and rounder, then making pieces for legs, ears and a trunk. He didn't turn out quite as I imagined, but very cute nonetheless. He is made mostly from felt, with the patterned sections coming from random scraps of fabric, his eyes are buttons, the eyelashes from dimensional paint (I was going to sew them on first, but I forgot when I was sewing him up, so dimensional paint it was!), and he has a little plaited tail made of orange wool. There are toy-pellets in the base so he is nice and weighty. The outsize ears and slightly downwards facing expression make him look like a shy, baby elephant to me.



When I make another, I think I would make the trunk shorter and perhaps curved more. I did cut a little off the original pieces I cut when I attached the trunk, but I would still prefer it a bit shorter. Also I would interface to fabric pieces with a nice soft interfacing so they didn't fray. This definitely isn't a toy for children; I doubt he would be up to much rough handling even if he didn't have 'choking hazards'.

Once again I got some lovely comments from my classmates and a few of them tried to sneak him home with them! I have a couple of requests for some more :-) I love when designs work out so well.


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