June 27, 2014

Toothless

Seen HTTYD:2 yet? It is in all seriousness one of the prettiest movies I have seen in a while. And by far and away the best sequel I have seen in just as long. I will for sure be buying it just to pause and look at all the dragon designs they crammed into this movie. I loved spotting some of the dragons from the Book of Dragons that Hiccup read through in the first film. Anyway.

My sister in law had minor surgery last week and in her delirious state asked that I make her a Toothless... I had this pattern for Toothless by Sarah of Sarselgurumi on file since the first film but never got around to making any.

This pattern is really very good. Easy to follow and simple to make. I used Patons Metallic black yarn which I didn't know existed till I found it in Michael's. The yarn, I figured, might be a bit of a challenge for two reasons: It is very slick (but that turned out to be just fine) and instead of being round, it is a flat yarn. This means that some stitches come out large and open if it is turned on its side, or really tight if it is flat to the hook. It is also on the thin side of "medium" weight yarns. It certainly was not like a regular Red Heart worsted weight would be.

The thinness, coupled with the fairly small 3.75 hook, caused my Toothless came out on the small side compared to others I have seen made online. However, like I had hoped, the metallic sheen of the yarn coupled with the smaller sc stitches really gave Toothless the shiny scaled appearance I had hoped for. He catches the light quite handsomely. It also on the more expensive side of yarn pricing, but you only need one skein and the effect was worth it. He even feels scaly when you pet him...
So cute.
The toes were a little confusing until I realized they were popcorn stitches, and even thought the pattern did not say to, I knew that I could pull it closed and add a slip stitch on top to make the next row around easier. Also, if possible, I should have tried to find black polyfil to stuff this guy with. I had a few larger holes from the yarn and the white filling showed through easily. I tried to compensate by stuffing him less firmly than I would otherwise, again helping to make him smaller than he might have been.

The wing pattern was also really cool. I had no idea in my mind how to make these but I just followed it along and was shocked at how cute they turned out.
Wings
Instead of making him an uninjured baby, I gave him his tail prosthetic fin by making one in red yarn. I sewed it to the tail along side the regular fin. It was here that I got to see just how much smaller using the metallic yarn was making it. In the picture below the two closest to my thumb are the pattern as written in the metallic black and standard red worsted. The black is like 80% of the Red. So I made a second black fin to match in size to the red one by adding anther row of sc around the outside after the end of their fin pattern.
Tail-fin size comparison.
The hardest part for me was sewing on the ears and 6 small horns on to the head. I must have attached the head crooked since there was less room on one side of the face than the other. So my toothless looks like his head is cocked to the side listening to strange noise. It is a happy/cute mistake. Lucky.
No Face.
I used a light lime green felt for his eyes, black for the pupils and a little spot of white for a highlight. I glued it down since last time I sewed felt onto crochet it came out all bubbly. The pattern mentioned that Fabri-tac glue worked well, but I had Tacky-glue on hand any used that. Came out ok.

Done! All the pieces whipped up quickly and total time to completion of the crochet parts was about 5 hours. Plus the detail work for the eyes, plus assembly and sewing time, and I'd say he came in at around 8 hours total. Skill level... moderately easy, but not a beginner because it's a very detailed pattern for being so small.

Update: A much prettier photo was taken by Toothless' owner:
Update2: Measurements are: 6 inches tall with an 8 inch ear span. 7 inches from front legs to tail tip.