Smelephant

Okay, a quick apology. I have been awful about blogging recently and it was not for any good reason. (It wasn't because I was out of town...that was only a weekend. Although it makes a good excuse Sharon.) The truth is that I am not keeping up on my stations. Lots of normal day to day stuff comes up and scheduled things get pushed aside. I wasn't focused on blogging because I thought I had time squared away for that. Turns out you can't really square time. You have to make something a priority for it to happen. Hopefully that means I have learned my lesson. Back to recent:

Daisy had this sweet baby blanket since she was, well....a baby. It was well loved.

Sadly, it was slightly charred in the blanket disaster of 2014. She has 'Snoopy' now and it is a great blanket, but she still has fond memories of her other blanket and she requested that I make it into something.

There is some pressure in this situation, because there is only one blanket, and if I messed something up, there was no going back. So, imagine me triple checking every step and measurement.

First, to decide what I should make. I asked Daisy what her favorite animal was and she said Elephant. (Yes, this still changes regularly, but I figured I could do an elephant.) I searched Pinterest (bless you internet) and found this fun tutorial. To be clear, this blog post is NOT a tutorial. It will show some stitching things, but there are no official instructions. Go to that link if you are interested in making something similar.

I got out Daisy's blanket and said a silent prayer. Luckily, the blanket was only singed in a spot on the back. There was still plenty of usable fabric.

I printed out a cute elephant pattern and got ready to go to town. I really liked the tutorial and it was free, but I wanted my elephant's ear to be a little farther back, so I just cut the pattern a little differently. You can see the original line and where I cut it farther back. Just personal preference.

Pieces cut. So far, so good.

I sewed the ears together and then sewed them between the other pieces. Since Daisy's blanket had two sides, the brown looked really good in contrast with the pink polka dots. I think normal cotton fabric would be easier to work with than this blanket fabric. (My machine liked to eat the fabric.) Obviously, I didn't have much choice.

I made the tail somewhere in there and then pinned it all together. Ready, set, sew.

I didn't get a picture of my fantastic helpers. June helped stuff the elephant and Pearl was very helpful watching and NOT telling Daisy. (That is a real skill people.) Finally, it was all ready to go.

The name came the day I finished it. June and I were playing Farkle and one of our imaginary people was Maleficent. Try saying that ten times. We started jumbling up the name and it eventually came out as Smelephant. The name was cute, so we gave it to our new creation. Smelephant does not have an eye, because I thought it would look strange among the polka dots. I think she is perfect just the way she is.

I left her on Daisy's bed one evening while she slept and she awoke to her new friend. The two have been pretty inseparable. I keep forgetting to get a picture of them together, so one night I turned on the light and snapped this shot. (She doubles as a pillow.)

I'm very happy with how she turned out. I think Daisy is pleased too. I think her favorite part is the knot in the tail.