this is not a tutorial.

Don't worry!  He doesn't have a bum leg, I just haven't sewed him shut yet!

I wanted to share with you how I made this elephant pillow.  If you don't want to know, I suggest you stop reading, as this post will most likely cause your eyes to glaze over.  Owen's little baby friend is turning one and his "animal" is the wise and wonderful elephant.  I saw an elephant pillow on a Pinterest nursery shaped like an elephant.

I went down to the Family Dollar (that's another story completely) and got myself some posterboard.  Amazingly I had everything I needed for this project, though I did have to pick up some stuffing.

In retrospect I would have made sure his legs lined up.  His trunk extends a little bitty ways past his back leg.

I cut him out of grey corduroy scrap fabric my friend had given me.

After that I cut out his tail, ears, and the border (that will go all around his outside) out of this tres chic chevron.

 Originally I was going to put a triangular piece of courderoy for his tail, but I changed my mind and went with the ribbon.  I chain stitched them together after I had pieced together the tail with some cotton batting inside.

One end was left open and I just inserted the ribbon then stitched over the whole shebangalang.

I did the same for the ear.  Pinned on some batting, sew together, turned inside out.

The ear will get sewed shut when I attach it to the elephant.

I really am bad at math.  So I just cut out four long strips of the chevron.  I sewed two together and ended up adding one more before I pinned around the whole figure.

Pinning this was bad news bears.  Lots of pins.  Lots of pokes.

Before I sewed the border around the outside I went ahead and attached the tail and ear to the other piece of the elephant.  He's cute, right?

Then I sewed around his edges.  I only had to go back and resew in one place, which is pretty great for a beginner like myself.  While I was doing this the dog threw up and Owen started crawling through it while slapping it, so I had to take an extended break.  Caution- do not sew while parenting.

Then pin on the other side of the ele, right sides together.

I left a large gaping hole on his leg so I could stuff him well.  No one likes an elephant with a big saggy trunk.

He ended up being huge.  There is Molly yawning at him.

There he is!  Now I have to hand stitch his leg closed.  I'm not very good at this.  If I could go back I would have left the opening on his back side so no one would think to look.  Also, I would make his ear a little larger if I do another one, but I think he's cute!  More like a pillow than a stuffed guy.  I got a little carried away with that big piece of poster board.  It's the teacher in me, lurking, trying to find a way to get out.