In case you don’t know, Amigurumi is the Japanese word for a crocheted or knitted stuffed toy. I’m just beginning to dabble in that particular art, and the elephant here is my first project. You might notice that he doesn’t have any eyes. That’s because as soon as I finished the head, both of my older boys decided they wanted one of these cute little creatures, even though my intention was to have this one be for the baby (the nursery theme is going to be elephants and giraffes). Knowing that I’d end up making at least 3, maybe 4, of these (I love elephants, too, so I might make a fourth to put up on my own shelf!), I opted not to sew the eyes onto any of them until all of them were completed. My thinking is that they’ll all have different colored eyes based on who they belong to – my 8 year old has green eyes, so his elephant will, too; my 5 year old has blue eyes, so his elephant will, too… you get the picture – but I don’t want to give a toy to one kid and not the other, so they’ve been told that neither will get one until both are completed. Similarly, I don’t want to have them mocking each other with “Mom already made mine!” even if they don’t technically have possession of it yet. Make sense? 🙂
For anyone interested in making your own “Baby’s Elephant,” click HERE for the free pattern, courtesy of Red Heart yarn.