Eleflunk? I hope not!

My young neighbor is entering pre-school next week and to celebrate the occasion, I made her a new backpack to schlep all of her school supplies to and from home.  I bought this KwikSew pattern (#3687) about two years ago with the idea of making them for my best friend's kids.  I never got around to making anything from this pattern and by the time I showed it to my friend, she very kindly told me that her kids were a little too old for it already.  Oh well.

With my new neighbor in mind, I decided to actually do a little sewing for the first time in months.  Her colors are pink and pink and I really wanted to find a way to use them with the owl pattern.  After staring at all of the fabrics on hand, I just could not see any of them as an owl.  When my eye wandered over to a black and purple Asian fabric, I immediately thought of the elephant pattern.  The only problem with the elephant pattern, and the main reason why I was leaning toward the owl or the chicken, is that it is really hard to determine that it actually is an elephant.  

I went for it anyway and paired the black fabric (a remnant from Jo-Ann's) with some purple and black polka dots (yard sale fabric courtesy of my mom) and here is the result:

Not bad, right?  You can kind of tell it's an elephant with the trunk, floppy ear, and stringy tail.  Those little sticky-outy-things on the bottom are the straps tied through loops.  The inside is lined in the polka dot fabric.  And it has a little handle:

As for the pattern itself, it was pretty easy to sew.  The hardest part was turning the loops for the straps and the buttons, but KwikSew had a quick trick for turning narrow casings using a bobby pin...works much better than a safety pin.  They did try to get to me turn one casing with a needle, but I gave up on that after a prick or two and reverted to the bobby pin method.  And in my usual fashion, I topstitched everything!  They didn't tell me to, but the trunk, ears, and top flap each had a layer of fleece between the fabric layers and it just did not seem clean enough without the topstitching.  As for the buttons, one is used to secure the flap and the other is used as an elephant eyeball. 

As for her reaction?  Well, it was hard to tell.  I think she liked it...she kept putting it on her head and then she went into the kitchen and stuffed a bag of breadsticks in it.  She was also very curious as to why the elephant only had one eye and one ear, which I thought was pretty cute.

As a side note:  I am pleased to report that KwikSew seems to be based out of Minneapolis, MN, so that means I am supporting a local business now that I live in the Twin Cities.