Instructions for Elliot “Moose” doll by “arsarca” jay smith (Felted)

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I found this pattern on Burda Styles but I can’t find out much about Jay. Jay said “I unsuccessfully felted an old, holey sweater (unsuccessfully as I think the label lied & the “100% pure virgin wool” label only applied to the wool component of the sweater) and turned it into a very loose interpretation of Elliot Moose. I cut the body out so that the neck was formed of the bottom of the sweater (ie., upside down) and along the side hem of the sweater. The head is an arm– the wrist is actually the inside of the mouth. And then hand-sewed the head to look like a moose. The ears are freehand”. Make sure yours is wool J

Materials:

Old sweater

Old pillow or batting

small scrap of other material for tongue

two button eyes small amount of embroidery thread for nose

A wonderful, easy-to-make stuffed moose for kids. I used only already-used material, stuff that was destined for the dump, so this was a zero-footprint project! (Thread excluded, though.) Instructions are in the “pattern”. I forgot to mention: sewing up the snout with embroidery thread! I modified an old t-shirt to fit the toy, too. Also not hard stuff…. Please contact me if you need help, though; it’s pretty intuitive stuff but my instructions might confuse! Ps. NEW! Instructions! Including tongue, which I forgot to mention!

1. Cut pattern. The two body pieces are cut on the seam of the sweater, with what will

be the animal’s neck on the ribbing of the waist of the sweater.

2. Sew wrong sides of body together, invert, and stuff.

3. Cut arm off of sweater. Sew “tongue” into wrong side wrist of sweater, closing off wrist

in the process, preserving good side of sweater for outside of head. (I used the cuff of

an old flannel shirt for the tongue.)

4. Tuck wrist ribbing of sleeve and tongue into sleeve; tack down the back of the mouth

to the underside of the moose’s mouth. Stuff so that the nose becomes elongated

and mooselike.

5. Loosely hand stitch around moose’s nose to preserve the big nose. Sew buttons just

above the line of stitching for eyes. Embroider the nose and cleft.

6. Stitch the little nubbins on the head above the eyes. Fold together the edges of the

back of the head, sew together by hand.

7. Make ears by cutting four teardrop-shaped pieces of sweater. Sew outer edge and

then stuff, sew line into ears. Hand sew to head on a curve so that the ears stand up.

Placement should be in line with nubbins, more or less.

8. Stuff the head into the neck, adding more stuffing if necessary. Hand sew neck ribbing

so that the head stands up and looks nice.

9. I cut down an old t-shirt to fit Elliot.

10.Take a picture and post for everyone to see!

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I have not done a lot of big cross stitch projects, but sometimes even with small projects it can be hard to decide exactly where to begin and how to work through the chart if you’re working with multiple colors. The general categories for the possible methods are known as cross country and parking.

Cross country means that you’re working one color at a time, moving around the chart (or the section of the chart you’re working on) until you’re done with that color. Parking means you’re working in a smaller section and doing all the colors in that area, “parking” the threads by leaving them attached to the canvas but out of the way while you finish each section.

Royal Rows is a specific way of parking named by Alison Royal, which is explored in detail on a post on Stitching Daily.

The idea is that you’re working one “tower” of stitches at a time (she uses a section of 10 stitches across by 20 down, but you can do whatever makes sense to you). You work all the stitches of a color at a time, starting at the top left and working your way down. When you’re done with a color you can park it where needed in the section below your current tower (known as the dungeon) or in the “east tower,” which is the section to the right.

There’s also a specific way of dealing with thread ends when you’re done with a color. This is a super simplified version (head to the blog post at Stitching Daily to get all the details) but the basic idea is that you’re working from left to right and top to bottom across the work, parking the threads in the next section when you’re done with them and systematically choosing which color to work with next.

The whole idea of parking is kind of overwhelming to me though I will admit that it makes a lot of sense. I guess I need to try it on a smallish big project and see how it goes. Do you use the parking method of cross stitch? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo via Stitching Daily]

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