My friends James and Emma’s baby was born a couple of weeks ago (she was the recipient of the Baby Surprise Jacket and the booties) and I thought what little Megan really needed to go with her hand knitted bits and pieces was an elephant. Ysolda has a great pattern called Elijah, he is knitted all in the round and you stuff as you go so he has no seams.

Here is the top of his head as I was knitting him.

The yarn is Rowan All Seasons Cotton, 60% cotton, 40% acrylic. The pattern called for a DK weight yarn knitted on 3mm needles, but the yarn I had was aran weight so I went for 3.5mm needles and I think it has come out well. The yarn was left over from a blanket knitted by another of Emma’s friends, the blanket was mostly cream but with stripes in pale blue, pale green and brown. There was none of the cream left, but nearly two balls of the blue, and nearly one ball of both the green and the brown. I was concerned that there wasn’t enough of any single colour to make the whole elephant, and so went for a stripey body with head and ears in solid blue, the colour I had the most of. I think he has come out very nicely, although I may be a bit biased 🙂

Here he is with legs and arms, but no ears or face yet.

He was a really fun knit, although if I was going to make another one I think I would choose a more elastic yarn. The fabric needs to be quite firm so that his stuffing wont poke through, and that was quite hard on the hands and shoulders with a cotton yarn.

Here he is finished.

He is even more adorable in real life, and I have been dragging him round to the knitting groups I go to to be admired 🙂 I did manage to face the difficult task of giving him up so he can go to his new owner last week and she seems to like him.