I showed you a pic on Saturday of the dragon friend I made. I have a few notes to make for myself and so why not bundle them into a blog post?
I’ve started seeing a personal trainer recently (I feel weirdly self-conscious about this!) and during our first session she told me that she’s really into dragons. This immediately made me feel like she was one of my people (fantasy/sci fi fans often are) plus dragons are cool. Then, a couple of weeks later, she told me that her birthday was coming up. So obviously I wanted to make a dragon to celebrate.
I had a week to make the dragon and I wanted it to be small, so a repeat of the African Flower Dragon was out. I found a free pattern for Baby Dragon Amigurumi (Ravelry link) by Lily Columbe (designer’s Facebook). The direct link to the pattern is here.
The design is for a lying-down, sleepy dragon but I wanted to make one that was sitting up. I pretty much followed the instructions for all the parts, and just assembled them differently. I did make some different hind legs so that they were bigger and rounder, which I thought was cute.
I didn’t want the dragon to be *too* adorable, so I used plain black cabochons for eyes and didn’t give him a funny tongue or a smiley mouth.
He is still adorable though.
The wings were the trickiest part. I added wire to the top edge as recommended, but found it hard to keep the ends of the wire covered up. If I’d had more time I would have messed with it more and tried to enclose the wire fully, or tried some different techniques. As it is, the wire gave some structure and shape which was lacking before – with the dragon sitting up the wings were much at the mercy of gravity.
I used 25g of Cotton Kings 8/4, which is fingering weight, and a 2mm hook. The inner wings are Drops Muskat in (I think) Light Mint, which was difficult to get on the 2mm needle, so the wings probably should have been made on a larger size.
Overall I’m really happy with how he turned out. It’s good to know that, if need be, I can make a little friend for a present on short notice!
I’ve added this post to the Unraveled Wednesday linkup, with thanks to Kat for hosting
The Crafty Yarnster 