Instead of working on my usual stuff this evening I stitched together the skin on a mastodon. During the week my son built the framework out of cardboard, wire, and papier mache (sp?) and he painted the tusks with a can of primer this evening. (Remember when I de-cluttered my paint into the kitchen cupboards? It was a breeze to find it!) We had stopped by JoAnn fabrics on the way home and picked up a 1/2 yard (but about 80" wide) of brown pile to simulate the hairy hide. I worked out a pattern with newspaper, then started cutting and hand-stitching. No way you can sew a mastodon hide on a sewing machine, it just won't work!

SRS