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Edward the Elephant was my second ever crochet project. I was on a roll after making Max the Monkey, that I just had to continue by making another Amigurumi from Sarah Zimmerman’s Crochet Cute Critters pattern book!
Meet Edward the Elephant
Edward is a rather cuddly, and sleepy boy. He doesn’t speak a lot, but prefers to make little raspberry sounds with his trunk. He loves the colour blue, because it’s the same colour as him, and he just thinks it’s just the best colour ever. You need to be careful about what you say around Edward though, even if you’re standing in another room of the same house. He tends to hear everything with those big and mighty ears of his.
Details you need to crochet Edward the Elephant
The crochet pattern
For my second crochet project, I didn’t want to challenge myself too much, so I continued to use Sarah Zimmerman’s pattern book, Crochet Cute Critters: 26 Easy Amigurumi Patterns. You can also check out Sarah’s blog here in case you want some more inspiration.
I did try to choose a pattern that would challenge me a little more shapes wise though. For example, Edward’s ears, trunk, and tail were all different shapes compared to what I needed to crochet for Max the Monkey. This was a big enough step forward for me at the time.
If you’re a beginner crocheter, I would highly recommend this pattern book. Although I had to look up a few things on YouTube (mainly because I wanted to see someone else doing certain crochet stitches so I could imitate the process), the book is extremely simple to follow and the patterns are ideal if you are starting out. If you click this link here, it will take you straight to the book to buy on Amazon, and I’ll get a very small percentage of the sale through the affiliate link. As a heads up, I do occasionally use affiliate links throughout this blog, but rest assured, I will never recommend anything I haven’t either tried myself or researched thoroughly. It also doesn’t cost you anything more by clicking these links, it just means I get a little bit of extra pocket money through the sale to help me pay for this website and my crochet goodies.
The yarn I used for Edward the Elephant
I’m a little bit of a rebel when it comes to buying yarn for projects. I rarely ever buy the exact type of yarn recommended in patterns. For making Edward, I used Rico Creative Cotton Aran in Turquoise (No. 36) that I bought from my local yarn shop in Edinburgh called, Be Inspired Fibres. Mei Cheung from Be Inspired Fibres is also extremely helpful, and if you’re local to Edinburgh and fancy buying some yarn, you can get in touch with her here on Instagram and she might be able to fix you up. I’m a big believer in supporting local businesses, even more so during this challenging time (thanks COVID-19 pandemic!). However, if you’re not local, you can also buy this yarn on Amazon here.
Resources to help you crochet Edward the Elephant
You may or may not notice, but this is a new heading I’m adding in for my project blog posts. After crocheting Max, I became better at promoting various resources on my Instagram account, such as other people’s blog posts and YouTube clips that really helped me complete each project. I thought this might be useful for others working through any of these patterns too that need a little reminder. See below a few resources that helped me crochet Edward.
Adding a new ball of yarn
Part way through working on Edward, I ran out of yarn in the middle of making one of his body parts. Here is a great video resource by New Stitch A Day that I used to help me figure out how to crochet a new ball of yarn into the work. Click here to watch the video.
What size are my craft eyes?
Does anyone have one of those little packs of safety eyes in various sizes, but where the container doesn’t actually specify the sizes of the eyes? This is mine in the image below. I bought this on Amazon (click here to check out the pack I bought).
The pattern I’d been working on for Edward specified a particular eye size to use, but I didn’t know how to tell what size each safety eye was. I found this fantastic blog post by Wendi Gratz called, What size are my craft eyes? Which thankfully had all the answers I needed, plus some bonus tips. Click here to check it out.
How to make a magic circle
When I first started out crocheting and making Amigurumi, I honestly had to look up how to crochet a magic circle (aka magic ring) every single time. I’m thankful now that I know how to do it off by heart, and you will get there too, I promise! What helped me loads though, was looking up various videos on YouTube where I could see the process. This video here by Blossom Crochet called, Absolute Beginner Crochet Series Ep 11: How to crochet the Magic Ring / Magic Loop / Magic Circle, really helped me a lot. I hope you find it useful too!
Final thoughts on crocheting Edward the Elephant
Overall, I was extremely happy with how wee Edward turned out. Don’t you think he’s a wee cutie?
If you’ve already made Edward the Elephant, are thinking about making him and have any questions, or you just want to share your experiences of starting out with crocheting, I would love to hear from you. Just add a comment below, or get in touch with me by email here.
Until next time, happy crocheting,
Cilla x
