Some dear family friends of ours are moving overseas, so I wanted to make some special gifts for their two young daughters. I have watched these girls grow up over the years, and they often remind me of my own sister and I with their playful interactions and collaborative stories they come up with. These sisters are also very crafty, and they absolutely fell in love with my amigurumi and amigurumi books when they paid us a visit. As they flipped through “Amigurumi World” by Ana Paula Rimoli, the younger one squealed with delight as she saw the elephant, stating it was her favourite animal! I knew immediately that I would try and make one for her.
These sisters are very bright with an extensive vocabulary. The younger one told me that her favourite colour is “periwinkle” (so specific compared to the typical responses of “blue” or “red”!), so when I saw a yarn named “periwinkle” at my local crafts store, I quickly picked it up and started crocheting away!
I first started with the trunk. To give the trunk a slightly bent look, we sewed some stitches in the middle together so it would stay bent.
Next I worked on the head, added eyes, and then sewed the trunk to the head.
I then crocheted the rest of her body parts. Notice the line of stitches along her body? This was created by doing single crochets in the back stitches only (leaving the front stitches showing). This is where I attached the tutu as you’ll see later on.
Then I attached the body, the ears, the arms, and a pretty flower! This flower was actually one of the test flowers I made for the girl Spring Bunny (I ended up making the bunny a bigger one).
Next was my favourite part- adding the fuscia tutu! I absolutely adore this colour. My wedding flowers and shoes were also this colour 🙂
In order to make her tutu wavy, I simply used my fingers to curl certain parts of the tutu up and down.
This is what it looks like after the waving- much more dynamic and fun now!
We cut out these toe shapes from felt and added them to each foot.
Then we attached her legs to her body with one sticking straight down and one going straight back. Here she is doing her arabesque:
And from a few different angles as well:
She is so sweet and cute! When I finished making her, I was reminded of the “heffalumps and woozles” song from Winnie the Pooh where the elephants dance around in tutus!
I had to do one more shot of her in front of my pillow that has the same beautiful fuscia colour!
These sisters take ballet as well, so I knew they’d appreciate the elephant’s tutu. Within minutes of my giving the younger sister this gift, she came up with a name for her: Lucy the Ballerina Elephant. They could not stop smiling 🙂 Stay tuned to see what I made for her older sister!
Amazon Affiliate Link:
