How can you not fall in love with this adorable pattern from Stuffed Hearts. I stumbled across this pattern when looking for a project for my husbands colleague who had just had a baby boy (although elton could easily be a girls toy too!!).
I like to find ways to adapt patterns to make them more interactive for kids. The easiest way is to turn stuffed animals and patterns into rattles. So Elton is one big rattle. I liked the idea of having “Dumbo-esque” ears for the toy, especially as it was for a 3 month old. To acheive this I added two more rounds to the ears on both the inner and outer patterns. Before I did the final attach setp, I added crinkle material to his ears. You can acheive the crinkle with baking paper or crinkle material available from craft shops.
I kept Elton’s tail in loops as the present was for a young child and I didn’t want them to accidentally pull out the strings and choke on them. he also does not have the saftey eyes. I chose to crochet some eyes so that I could tightly stitch them into the elephants head.
Additionally in keeping with a childs toy, I used a size smaller hook to make sure that there was no way that the fibre fill stuffing could be worked free.
Elton Elephant Teether Ring
I also adapted this pattern to be a teether ring attachement. This was a gift for a Collegue whos first son had just arrived. This adaption of the pattern has crinkle ears and bells in the centre. It is also a teething ring out of natural wood.
This variation can be acheived by scaling down the size of the elephants head and trunk to suit the required size for the teether.
I love the little rattle project. It was the perfect commuting sized project to work on!
Crafty Commuter 