This elephant is a spontaneous little project that grew out of (a) my wanting a sewing project to do downstairs where it’s cooler and (b) an idea from the print of the flannelette I was hemming to make burp cloths for my great-niece.

We’ve had a run of hot weather, by which I mean in the 30s Celsius, and whilst we do most of our living upstairs in our bi-level it can get uncomfortably hot indoors – like 29 degrees hot. We don’t have air conditioning so the best way to get cooler is either take a shower, go for a swim in the lake, or retreat down to the basement where I have my craft room.

Last night I went down there and found some pretty fabric that I bought when it was selling out at the store and I really wanted some before it was all gone. I have three metres of it so decided it would make pretty curtains for my craft room. So far I have cut the panels and hemmed them, but I need ruffle tape for the tops, so if I can get a reasonable photo later on I can show you them.

I also hemmed the aforementioned flannelette, and went through my other stash fabric to see if my inspiration would be jump-started.

I made a list of things I want from the fabric store where I work, including the quantities for two skirts that I want to make. One is a wraparound skirt from the book Weekend Sewing and the other is another tiered skirt using the same Burda pattern as I used last time.

I was doing some trawling around Ravelry yesterday doing an elephant search, and also searching Pinterest, and came across the sewn elephant toy. It’s on a site called Sewandso.co.uk. I found the instructions to be a bit basic and they wouldn’t work well for a beginner who needed to have every step spelled out for them. I had three colours in the same print from a long ago purchase so made the body red, the ears and tail green, and the inner legs blue.

This elephant has no eyes and I don’t plan to add any. Having made this little guy, I’m not sure whether I will make another, but if I do I will do a better job!

To add to the heat we have had lots of smoke in the valley the last few days. Smoke from various wildfires is being blown in. A state of emergency has been declared in British Columbia because there are so many fires burning in different spots. I don’t know how the firefighters manage to deal with them all – their resources must be spread thinly. It’s another windy evening here, which is nice when all the windows can be opened at night and the air moves through, but wind has a dark side in that it whips up fires. Also, there is no rain in the forecast, but sometimes we will get hopeful about some clouds only to have a thunderstorm that just starts more fires.

Now that inventory is over with at work, things will be back to normal. I had a much-needed day off today, part of which I spent at the beach with a friend. I had a very brief dip in the lake but mostly I was sunbathing. It felt good.

Not much point showing you the crochet blanket progress because it’s pathetic how little I’ve achieved since last time. So I will finish with a photo of the Tunisian simple stitch cowl which my co-worker loved and appreciated so much.