Elephant Embroidery

My sweet friend Hannah LOVES elephants. I mean LOVES them. 

I captured her loving on this elephant in Cambodia last year. 

While I was home last summer, I decided I wanted to try my hand at embroidery. I found a "how to draw an elephant" doodle on Pinterest, so I decided to use it to make a little something for Hannah. 

Here is what I came up with:

Isn't he cute? I really love how it turned out. 

大象 {da xiang} means elephant. 

The second character is pretty complicated.... In fact, I remember freaking out when it was on our final exam in our writing class first semester last year (ya know 4 months after we started learning this complicated language). Needless to say at that point, I did not get it correct. SO I was a little nervous about trying to embroider it and went back & forth trying to decide if I should or not, but it turned out great! I'm glad I did. 

I used colored tracing paper to draw the pattern on the fabric after I had free handed it onto a sheet of paper. 

I used just the basic back stitch for almost everything, and 2 little french knots for his eyes. 

I wanted to add a little something extra to balance it out, and be able to add more color so I decided he needed to hold a little balloon with his trunk. 

And not just any ballon, a pink heart balloon. 

I considered framing it, but decided that I liked it as it was in the embroidery hoop. 

I'm still a little obsessed with it. 

Hannah loved it too :) 

That was my first adventure in embroidery. I haven't done anything else except played around with different stitches on scraps of fabric. I do want to try something else soon. 

Joyfully Embroidered, 

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