Elephant No. 162: Stuffed Animal

For a meeting of the fibre arts guild tomorrow, people are bringing teddy bears they've made. So I thought, of course, that I'd make a teddy elephant.

A few weeks ago, Jean from the fibre arts guild gave me a couple of magazines with patterns for toy elephants, one of which is the perfect size for this blog.

Stuffed toys and dolls have been around for millennia. They likely originated in Ancient Egypt, as substitutes for real animals in the afterlife. Although no ancient stuffed toys have ever been found in Egypt, paintings on the walls of tombs suggest that they did indeed exist.

The first modern stuffed animals were introduced in the 1830s. They were usually homemade, stuffed with bits of cloth and straw. The idea for stuffed animals actually comes from the world of taxidermy, and the stuffing of hunting trophies.

Commercially produced stuffed animals debuted in 1880, when the German company Steiff made toys with adapted upholstery techniques. In 1903, a Peter Rabbit toy inspired by Beatrix Potter's books became the first stuffed toy to be patented, but it wasn't until 1905 that Steiff made its first soft, furry bear.

Vintage 16-inch Steiff teddy bear from a collection valued at $1.9 million.
Source: http://fawainsider.tumblr.com/post/1291385954/fund-manager-
forced-to-part-with-his-teddy-bear

In 1902, Morris Michtom approached U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt after seeing a political cartoon of Roosevelt with a bear cub. Michtom asked if he could use the President's name in association with a stuffed bear, and they have been known as "teddy bears" ever since.

Today, stuffed toys range from the realistic to the completely fantastical. There are also collectors' societies and guilds all over the world, and many vintage stuffed toys sell for thousands of dollars.

For today's elephant, I wanted to make something on the small side, so I reduced the size of the pattern for this elephant by Celia Baham. I planned from the outset only to make the elephant itself, as I knew I wouldn't have time today to also make the blanket and headdress.

Stuffed elephant by Celia Baham.
Source: Teddy Bear and Friends, September/October 2005, pp. 56–59,
published by Madavor Media, Boston, U.S.A.

I started by cutting everything out. For fabric, I chose this low-pile upholstery velvet that I got for less than two dollars. I decided on velvet rather than furry fabric because of the elephant's size, and because a furry elephant wasn't quite what I wanted.

I stitched the head together first. I decided to sew everything by hand because of the elephant's size. From previous experience, I knew that this would be nearly as fast as with a sewing machine, but easier to control.

After the head was stitched, I turned it right side out. This is where the problems started, as the trunk was so thin and so curly that I nearly destroyed the head trying to turn it. I actually ended up having to unstitch the trunk, turn it, then whipstitch it by hand. It took me forever, and I was not a happy camper.

Once the head was done and stuffed, I turned my attention to the body. This went quite well, again until I had to turn it. The legs were a bit on the thin side, and it took me about 45 minutes to turn everything. But at least I was almost done at this point.

Next I stuffed the body. For both body and head I stuffed things very firmly, using the flat end of a metal crochet hook to pack the stuffing in.

Then I whipstitched the head to the body.

To finish this off, I added two black beads for eyes and tied an old-fashioned ribbon around its neck.

I don't usually mind making little toys at all, and I did learn from my mistakes in terms of turning narrow things like a curly trunk and thin legs. I was very frustrated through much of this process, however—probably because I thought it would take far less time than it did.

Although this took a lot longer than I would have thought possible, I like the final result so much that I forgive it everything. But I don't think I'll be making another one in a hurry.

Elephant Lore of the Day
All elephants like to play, but playtime and toys are particularly important for captive elephants. Because elephants spend a great deal of time foraging and eating, some toys and games relate to food. Other important forms of play involve problem-solving and releasing aggression.

According to animal behaviourists, elephants enjoy searching for food and preparing it themselves. At some zoos, hay and other treats are placed in narrow openings so that the elephant has to "forage" in order to eat.

They also enjoy food-related problems such as retrieving fruit from barrels and hanging baskets, and will even use tools to get at the tasty treats. Apparently, elephants are especially fond of the sound of chains hitting the barrels, and will run at them again and again, even without food as the main attraction.

Elephant playing tetherball with tire, National Zoo, Washington, D.C., 2011.
Photo: Olivia V. Ambrogio
Source: http://beastsinapopulouscity.blogspot.com/2011/03/tetherball-for-
solo-pachyderm.html

A large part of elephant play, however, involves tossing things around. Captive elephants in particular enjoy having tires and large rubber balls to play with. Because elephants like to fling their toys and push them into ditches, toys must usually be secured to chains to keep them from injuring visitors. Tires help elephants test their strength by pushing and tossing them with head, trunk, tusks and feet. If given a heavy ball of solid rubber, a favourite pastime involves pushing the ball into a pool, fishing it out, then throwing it right back in again.

Like many of us, elephants also get bored of their toys after a while. It is thus important for zoos to replace, exchange or move toys every few days.

Elephants playing with soccer ball, Taronga Zoo,
Sydney, Australia, 2010.
Photo: Renee Doyle ©Solent News & Photo Agency
Source: http://animalslook.com/baby-pele-phant/

To Support Elephant Welfare World Wildlife Fund World Society for the Protection of Animals Elephant sanctuaries (this Wikipedia list allows you to click through to information on a number of sanctuaries around the world) Performing Animal Welfare Society Zoocheck Bring the Elephant Home African Wildlife Foundation Elephants Without Borders  Save the Elephants International Elephant Foundation Elephant's World (Thailand)  David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust

Elephant No. 13: Sock Elephant

I've never tried making any kind of sock creature before. In fact, I'd never even owned a sock monkey until one of my friends made me what we jokingly call the Not Your Average Sock Monkey. Since his eyes don't show, we also call him the Amish Sock Monkey.

True sock monkeys are made with red-heeled wool socks, which were originally a trademark of the Nelson Knitting Company of Rockford, Illinois. The first red-heeled socks were made in 1932, and quickly became known as "Rockfords". It is likely that the first toy sock monkeys were made from worn-out Rockfords during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

In 1955, the Nelson Knitting Company was awarded a patent for the traditional sock monkey design, and began including the pattern with every pair of socks. Having a patent allowed them to use sock monkeys in their advertising, thus showcasing a novel use for their product. In 1958, the magazine Pack-O-Fun published How to Make Sock Toys, with instructions on how to make all kinds of animals with red-heeled socks. The book was so popular that it was published right into the 1980s. In the late 1980s, Marketing Tide of Willoughby Hills, Ohio began selling sock monkey kits containing a pair of the original socks.

The Nelson Knitting Company was acquired in 1992 by Fox River Mills, which still produces red-heeled monkey socks. The heels in the newer socks have a different shape, however, lacking the points that gave the original sock monkeys their smile.

Not having any idea how a sock monkey is made, let alone a sock elephant, I looked for patterns online. The one I used is the traditional sock elephant pattern; unfortunately, the only socks I could find didn't have the distinctive red heel, so I had to adapt the design a bit.

The pattern calls for exactly two socks. I goofed cutting out the trunk, however, so it was lucky that the socks came in a six-pack.

The first thing you do is create the main body and the two back legs from a single sock. I was now glad that my socks didn't have the traditional red heel, because my elephant would have ended up with a red rear end, like a baboon.

Once the body is stuffed, you make the two front legs, stuff them, and stitch them on. The pattern called for putting cardboard circles inside the feet, but I hate cardboard inside soft toys, so I just stuffed them tightly instead.

Next come the trunk and ears. The pattern suggests putting a piece of wire inside the trunk to allow it to be bent into interesting shapes. I tried this with the only wire I could find of the right gauge: a glittery pipecleaner that I got who knows where. The glitter showed through, which bugged me, and it was really irritating to try to stuff the trunk around the wire.

I don't think you actually need wire for the trunk, because the pattern suggests following the natural curve of the sock's toe. The trunk is also incredibly long if you cut according to the pattern. If I were ever to make one of these again, I'd definitely cut it shorter.

The pattern calls for pipecleaner tusks, but I thought they would look cheap, so I sewed some tusks from the white part of a scrap sock. The tail was stitched from a scrap piece of grey.

Because I didn't have the red-heeled sock to use for the mouth, I shaped the mouth a bit with some stitching, then embroidered a red mouth with the unravelled top of one of my socks. I also wanted to add a bit more red to him somehow, so I made him a weird little hat from the top of another sock, used some of the unravelled red to make a pompom, and knit him a scarf from the remaining unravelled red. To finish him, I embroidered black eyes with tapestry wool.

For someone with basic sewing skills this should take about two or three hours. The hat took no time, and knitting the scarf took an additional hour or so.

I wanted to make this sock elephant using nothing but the socks themselves, with the exception of the eyes. However, it makes a huge mess if you unravel the sock top to get the extra bit of red. If I were ever to make one of these again, I would used red tapestry wool or something instead.

Kind of cute in an if-elephants-looked-like-aliens sort of way.

Elephant Lore of the Day
The woolly mammoth—an extinct relative of the elephant—once roamed North America and northern Eurasia. Known today from large numbers of bones and frozen carcasses, it probably lived between 150,000 and 10,000 years ago. Until about 1700 B.C., a dwarf species survived on Wrangel Island, off the coast of Siberia.

Woolly mammoths were only slightly taller than today's African elephants, although they were larger and heavier, weighing up to 8 tonnes (8.8 tons). They also had extremely long tusks—some as long as five metres (16 feet)—which were far more curved than those of today's elephants.

The most obvious of its many adaptations to the cold was a thick layer of shaggy orange-brown hair that could grow up to one metre (3.25 feet) in length. In addition to the hair, there was a layer of fine wool underneath, which is what gives this type of mammoth its name. Their coat was probably similar to that of a muskox, and it is believed that they moulted in the summer.

Over the past 100 years or so, there have been claims that the woolly mammoth is not extinct at all. Scientists and hunters have occasionally heard about abominable-snowman-type sightings of woolly mammoths, and some say that small herds might still be lurking somewhere in the vast tundras of the North.

To Support Elephant Welfare
World Wildlife Fund
World Society for the Protection of Animals
Elephant sanctuaries (this Wikipedia list allows you to click through to information on a number of sanctuaries around the world)
Performing Animal Welfare Society