The other day I was chatting with a friend when I realized she would be a perfect victim for my next amigurumi project.  She’s a big fan of elephants and they are something I wouldn’t have sought out on my own.  I scoured the ‘net as usual and found a Lion Brand elephant amigurumi pattern to my liking.  I actually ran into it on someone’s blog; Barefoot Daydreams.  Her little elephant is so darn cute that I was immediately in love.  The little trunk is the zinger for me.

While working this pattern I learned something important: read through the pattern at least once before starting.  I was working on the body which starts from the tush and works its way to the tip of the trunk.  Before starting to crochet the face and trunk, the pattern says to stuff the body.  For some reason I assumed that I would finish off and then crochet the face/trunk piece later.  Turns out that after stuffing I was to continue to crochet but I had already cut the yarn.  I just pulled my new yarn end in and continued to crochet as if nothing had happened and luckily there is no visible transition and the elephant was completed with out a hitch.  Another fabulous feature of the elephant is the tail!  It is a chain with a couple half double crochets to make a nice little triangle shape.

The cuteness of an amigurumi is based so much on the eye placement.  Placing the eyes incorrectly can cause an ami to look odd and not quite right.  Whenever I look at where to place my eyes I do a lot of testing.  Too far apart and it can look dopey, too close together can have the same result.  I’ve had a hard time attaching bead eyes at the same level on the face so a couple times I’ve just offset them intentionally to avoid the problem.  This can add to cuteness luckily!  I am thinking about getting some of those animal eyes so I stop using up my black bead stash.

My friend welcomed her orange elephant friend as did her cats.  She immediately knew what his name would be: Humphrey.  I crocheted him in orange because it is her favorite color (plus I’ve never worked in orange).  My friend turned out to be my perfect ami project victim.  Who’s next?