Thursday, April 30, 2009

Elephants on Parade

After a few weeks of feeling guilty for not participating in my church group's humanitarian project last month, I whipped up some of these elephants to donate. This months theme was soft toys.
I found this charming little pattern here, at Quilt Taffy. I really loved the method used to sew these jungle giants up. Easy peasy. And I used all scrap fabric. The elephants are only about 6 or 7 inches. I loved how they turned out, exept for where I had to hand stitch the opening closed. Does any one have any tips on how to make a smooth transistion there?
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4 comments:

ilovebabyquilts said...

I hand sew exclusively, so I may have a few tips. First, come up with your needle from the inside in the batting, leaving the knot and the tail in the batting. Fold the edges of the opening over to make "lips" and then pin your lips together. Whipstitch the opening shut, making loose stitches, not pulling tight. If you pull tight, it will deform and make a raised ridge. Just make loose stitches and then let them relax out.

When you've sewed the hole shut, make a topstitch knot like this: lay your thread down in a circle, like a lasso. Take one topstitch right across where your thread comes up and pull the needle up inside the lasso. The lasso will close and make a knot. Lastly, push your needle down into the batting right where the thread comes up. Roughly push it through the batting and come out of the elephant anywhere you like - then pull the thread up slightly and cut it. The thread end will snap back into the batting.

That's it, should work!

Aelyn said...

Very adorable!

Beth said...

So cute!

I've been meaning to try this for closing off a softie: http://stardustshoes.blogspot.com/2009/04/baseball-stitch.html

Mariss said...

Those elephants are so cute! I love the pin cushions above too :) They're so cute marching in the grass!

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