You may remember my lovely stegosaurus from a few months back? Well, before the stegosaurus was the dragon. Smaug the African Flower Dragon (Ravelry link) by Heidi Bears (Etsy link) to be precise.
About four years ago, I wanted to make a present for a friend’s wee boy. I didn’t really know what I was about in those days and chose a pattern that would ultimately turn out a toy the size of a small labrador. Not because of the pattern itself, mind, but because I insisted (I always do seem to insist) on using DK to make it, contrary to instructions.
It did use up plenty of scraps. I needed a full 100g of red to do the joining up, used a full 100g rainbow yarn, and then the rest was odds and ends from my boxes.
There are lots of shapes in this particular animal, and I’ll tell you what else I didn’t do: I didn’t sew in the ends of all those shapes. ‘They’ll be on the inside,’ I thought. ‘Nobody will ever see them,’ I thought.
Ahahahaha.
The dragon was given to my wee pal, who loved it on sight (so gratifying). As he played with it, my friend told me she was expecting another baby! Lovely news for a lovely sunny afternoon.
That baby is now four, and the dragon – who’s called Dragony, in the best tradition of naming children’s toys – has had four years of love from two energetic and imaginative brothers.
Dragony is played with every single day. He is never the baddie in any story, only ever a hero who saves the day by swooping in and breathing fire to chase off the villains. He is a companion for watching TV, a bedtime guardian, and always there for a cuddle. Sometimes he’s a cushion – sometimes even a chair. You can see literally every yarn end, and his stuffing is half out, half in, and half missing.
He’s exactly as he should be.
