Make a Woolly Mammoth!

Author: Daniel Kahn Gillmor dkg@fifthhorseman.net
Date: February 2013
License: GPLv3+ -- please share freely!

Make a stuffed woolly mammoth!

These patterns are designed to be cut out of US Letter paper (8.5" x 11" sheets), and should probably work with a minor bit of re-sizing on A4 paper if you live in a sensible part of the world.

Materials

• shaggy fake fur [enough for four 8.5" x 11" sheets -- a half yard or a "fat quarter" from most bolts should be more than enough]

• white or beige fleece for tusks [one 8.5" x 11" sheet]

• smooth fabric for "hide" (i used denim) [one 8.5" x 11" sheet] -- this is for the areas of exposed (non-furry) skin, like the inner ear, the soles of the feet, and the inside of the trunk

• polyfill (or other material) for stuffing

• These instructions and the pattern.

General notes

• The pattern has pretty tight seam allowances, and might be best done by hand. if you are using a machine, you might want to increase the seam allowances. I made my mammoth with hand-stitching.

• Always join the shaggy material with the seam on the non-shaggy side.

• Pay attention to the orientation of the shag!

• Most edges are marked with letters to indicate where they will be joined. Usually, a seam will connect an edge with the other edge with the same symbol followed by a ' (e.g. A connects to A').

Instructions

• Cut out the pieces of fabric, and mark them so you know which is which :)

The Body

• On the right flank, join A to A' (to form the butt) and B to B' and C to C' (to make the legs). Remember to do all of this "inside out" initially -- you'll turn the pieces right side out later.

• Join one of the "hide" feet to close the base of each leg. Note which side of the "hide" material will ultimately face out.

• Do the same on the left flank: L to L' (for the butt) and M to M' and N to N' (for the legs), and sew on the feet.

• Still inside out, join the two flanks at the back and top: D to D' and E to E'.

• Join the two flanks together in the front as well: H to H'.

The Head

• Make a tusk: join two curved pieces of the fleece together along the curved surfaces, leaving the edge marked "x" open (if your fleece has a difference between the top and bottom, make sure the same side faces out). Turn the tusk inside out so that the seams are on the inside (i find a chopstick helps for this). Stuff the tusk with polyfill. It should be packed in pretty tight; the rest of the mammoth will be soft, but the tusks should be stiff.

• Make the other tusk the same way as the first :)

• Make the left ear by joining the "hide" piece to the fur piece along all the curved edges. Don't join it along the flat edge. Make sure your fur and the "outside" face of the hide material is on the inside while you're making this seam.

• Turn the left ear right-side out and tack down a small pleat in the middle of the "hide" piece along the straight edge. This will make the ear curve properly, and provide an inner-ear contour when fully assembled.

• Make the right ear the same way as the left (but a mirror image, of course)

• Join the trunk lining to the base of the trunk by sewing V to V'. Open the joined pieces out flat so that the lining extends past the trunk. Make the tube of the trunk (inside out!) by joining Y to Y' and W to W'.

• Join the upper parts of the head: U to U' and T to T'.

• Turn the trunk right-ways out by pushing from the tip of the trunk up toward the head, leaving the lining on the inside.

• Attach the tusks on either side of the trunk.

Putting it all together

• Turn the head right-side out, and tuck it into the rest of the (inside-out) body. you should see O and O' line up, as well as F and F'. Before you join them there, insert an assembled ear on each side of the head, with the base of the ear touching the lower jaw (the corner of O and P on the left flank touches the base of the left ear, and the corner of F and G touches the base of the right ear). It's pretty tight with all these pieces stuck on the inside of the mammoth; use a straightpin or two to keep them in place while you make the seams.

• Join the underside of the jaw to the head: P to P' and G to G' -- this can be a little awkward with the tusks there -- just do the best you can. I found it useful to cut away extra pieces of the flank material from the lower jaw and to tuck other bits inside as it makes a better fit. I also found it useful to turn the mammoth right-ways out to look at it as i was doing this part. I also got the tusks a little crooked, but i think that looks cute :P

• Turn the mammoth inside out again.

• Attach the front and sides of the underbelly: join R to R', J to J', and Q and I to Q'-I', while also joining the underbelly to the top of all four inside-out legs. If you're doing this by hand (and maybe by machine), you should be able to make this in one long seam.

• Turn the mammoth right-side out through the last remaining gap in the base of the butt (S, K, and S'-K').

• Add some polyfill stuffing. I like my mammoth nice and squishy, so i didn't add a lot. The fake fur is fairly stiff itself, and i wanted to make sure that the tusks were stiffer than the body. I also found it useful to make little balls of stuffing and put them into each stubby leg deliberately, since big wads of stuffing in the body itself didn't seem to want to migrate into the legs on their own.

• Stitch up the last hole by joining S and K to S'-K'.

• Await a coming ice age so your mammoth can roam the plains!

Followup

If you use this pattern (and especially if you modify it or improve it) i'd love to hear about it. You can write me at the above address if you want to contact me.

The pattern is made from an SVG file which you can modify with inkscape. And these instructions are just text. If you're into revision control, you can find all of the source online using git:

git clone https://gitlab.com/dkg/woolly.git