Abe

I mentioned a little elephant in my previous post and now, through the magic of Blog Land, I can introduce him to you. As you can see, he's full of vintage charm! I've called him Abe. He was a devil to photograph, so I hope these pics have managed to capture his personality!

Abe is just under eight inches in height and as those of you who follow my blog regularly will recognise, he bears a deliberate resemblance in proportion and shape to my own hand made childhood elephant, 'Ellie'. I think Abe is a funny wee scrap of trumpeteer and I'm really not sure what you'll make of him, so please let me know if you think he's the kind of elephant only his mother could love! My instincts are that he would make a super companion for a special vintage, or vintage style bear; one thing's certain, he's definitely a great size for the job.

Left: woollen elephant 2008 - Right: my original 1960's elephant

I've developed the original softie elephant pattern a tiny bit, to include a jointed head and a head gusset in what was a simple two piece head, to give the head more definition, I've also taken a little more artistic licence with his trunk shaping, but other than those minor adjustments, I've kept Abe pretty true to my original 1960's elephant.

I last used Abe's mohair to create Walter, my recent vintage style bear and as this mohair is perfect for that aged feel, I thought it would be interesting to see how it would work with my three piece, unjointed body design ... I've combined the mohair with a lovely silk/velvet blend in an antique bronze colour for his inner ears and have given him vintage style matt boot button eyes. I didn't want to overwork this design, because I wanted him to retain a simple charm. He's been great fun to make, but tomorrow, I promise, it's back to the bears for this bear maker! Mind you, now I come to think about it, I may just have enough of this fabric leftover to make a companion bear in similar style to Abe ... now there's a thought!