Tuesday 6 November 2012

Quiet Book: Elephant

This is the last page in the series about the quiet book version of one of Little J's favorite books.
The real book ends with the teacher seeing the last animal, then children seeing the teacher and finally a 2-page spread with the children recapping all of the animals. I didn't think I could replicate that very well, so I created my own ending:
An elephant! I drew the elephant myself and was SUPER EXCITED when I discovered that a local fabric store has a basket of leather and similar remnants. I found a soft, leathery remnant that was perfect for a gray elephant. The best part is that it doesn't fray so I was able to make an ear that moves.

I also splurged and bought little ribbons in all of the colors of the other animals for the elephant's spray. The tail is an upcycled bookmark tassel.

For the elephant the steps were:
1 cut shape of the main body
2 sew gray material to the underside of the felt
3 sew on tassel tail
4 sew on pink felt mouth and bead tusk
5 sew on ear
6 sew on eye beads (I made the eye purple because I could)
7 sew on ribbon spray
If I could do it over again, I would not have cut the felt off where the trunk goes, and sewn the ribbons to that felt and then covered it with the trunk. Live and learn. Instead, I had to start the ribbons behind where they are and fold them over. I think it looks ok, but I think I would have saved myself some hassle.
Technically, to go full circle, the elephant should have been on brown, because the first animal is the brown bear. But, I couldn't bear [no pun intended] to do that to the pretty elephant. So, the gold fish are on brown (I don't have a post for those because a friend made them, there are 3).

I hope Little J likes the book and I hope you do too. I found this technique (under-laying the touchy-feely fabric so fun to sew, that I'm using it for other projects).
 The End

 P.S., Why aren't hassle and tassel spelled the same way?

Given the number of beads, you may not want to let a young child play with a book like this unattended.

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