Can you make a fabric elephant about 2' big? Sure I can!

Portland Quilt Market 2013 is a Wholesale Trade Show (some are retail, too!) where fabric companies and designers present their new collections to store owners. They have School House Session, where attendees watch a presentation by the fabric designers and companies. Also, each company has a trade show booth where they present the fabric and also projects made out of the new lines. You can watch the School House seesions on You Tube, too.

My pal Lonni Rossi, who is a designer for Andover Fabrics asked if I could make an Elephant for the recent Portland Show. She had a vision of the elephant, about 2-3' long and made out of her Raindrops Collection. Then, to show off the new line, it would be draped with a beautiful small quilt, showing the gorgeous new fabric called Facets.

I've never made something like this before, but it turned out to be tons of fun, and a successful challenge.

Elephant Recipe:
Chicken Wire
Paper Mache- newspaper and flour kind
Two layers of quilt batting hot glued onto paper mache
3 yards of Raindrops Fabric
Needle, Thead,
Inspiration, Confidence and don't forget to have fun

Once the body was constructed, covered in paper mache, then covered in two layers of quilt batting, I draped the grey fabric over the elephant and hand stitched the enitre thing together. I used a long/big needle and upholstery thread. Since elephants are wrinkly, it was quite easy to stitch on, and I added wrinkles, folds, as I went along.



Close up of eye. I made two small stuffed discs for the eyes and used Wire Fiber for the eyelashes