Dragon Doll

Following along with the Mushroom Folk, this pattern is another by Lalylala on Etsy, specifically Dirk the Dragon.

This guy was also made with a 3.75mm hook and used some of the leftover white, red and brown sock yarn from the mushrooms, with the addition of the stunning green, which I kind of splurged on. Since it was going to be so much of the toy, I really wanted a nice yarn and settled on Madeline Tosh Twist Light weight in Jade.

The the body parts were a breeze to make up, especially after the mushrooms. The only part I struggled with was the back spikes since a surface slip stitch is hard for me to do. Still not sure I got it as straight as I would have liked but in the end it turned out great. The spikes on the back, mirror so nicely those ear which might be the cutest I have ever made.

Since this one was going to live in the same house as the white portobello mushroom guy, I decided to make the scarf out of the same brown so they would coordinate a bit more. The scarf is simply three rows of double crochet worked along a long chain, about 23 inches long. With a little fringe at the ends. With the cheek blush he's really something special.

The finished doll stands about 14 inches tall.
Time to complete: 20 hours

Project Repeats

Happy to report that at least some people are seeing these posts and asking for items of their own. So I have made quite a few duplicates lately as well as new projects.

I have now made two more Harold tigers... The left one is made from the same skeins of yarn as the original. The right one is made with a more subdued orange and a slightly creamier white since I only had minimal amounts of the original yarn at that point. I like to think that the third one is the "vintage" color scheme. The vintage one also came out larger since the orange was a bit thicker than the one I used before. I tried to see how fast I could make one and managed to get all the parts done in a single day of about 5 hours. The next day I was then able to stuff, sew, assemble and detail it in about 3 more hours, for a total of 8 instead of the 12 it took the first time.

Left is the second, same as original. Right is third, "vintage", with cream and darker orange.

And a second baby Toothless. I debated not giving him the red prosthetic fin, since as a baby he would not have it, but it is too signature to leave off. Also this time, I was having a lot of trouble with the slick metallic yarn I was using again. I had plenty left over from the first one. I'm not sure if it deteriorated somehow in my non-climate controlled storage shed or what, but to make it workable I added a second yarn. The second is a thin black worsted and I carried them along together. Since it was thicker I had to use a 5.00 hook this time.

I do think the benefit to this was that using two yarns meant that I did not have those big holes in the toy from last time that allowed the stuffing to be seen through. It also meant that this baby came out big! The first was 6 inches, this one towers to 8 easily. First earspan was 8, now 10 inches! Nose to tail original: 7 inches... new one: 9 inches! So, a two inch increase in all dimensions makes a very substantial little guy. Plus he feels really solid with two yarns. Admittedly he is not nearly so shiny but just enough of the slick comes through I think. I also slightly changed the pupil position. Being so much larger, he did take a bit longer than the first... clocked in at about 10 hours.

so you can see his tail

These projects are excellent because not only do they go nice and fast, since I have my notes and past experience to draw from, but since they are smaller projects I can use up more leftover yarn. I am really trying hard to not be that person with an entire wall of yarn balls as best I can... as it is my stash is way too large and not very well organized. Might be a good project for the winter.

Otachi Kaiju

I have had Lemmy Loop in my RSS feed for a long time... and more recently on tumblr. So when I saw her make a crochet Otachi I metaphorically died of "cute-overload". She was kind enough to release her pattern to a few who asked nicely, and so my new-found dream of making one could come true!
Notes: Please do not spam her for the pattern unless you really intend to make one. She has asked that we do not share the pattern, sell the pattern or sell items made from the pattern... so, No, I cannot make you one.

I wanted to use just the "right" yarn, so when I got to go to that great yarn store in Austin and I took the opportunity to find my perfect yarn for my girl. As blue is my favorite color, I wanted to give mine the blue-gray coloring like in the film and in this particular image. It's probably just because all the fight scenes are so dark that she looks blue though.

Stargazing...

With hues of dark blue, black, purple, gray and a tiny bit of green, I knew Madeline Tosh, Tosh DK in "Stargazing" was perfect. It is 100% superwash merino wool. A dk weight is similar to a worsted weight. It can be machine washed, but has to air dry. At $22 a skein, and I needed two, Otachi is the second most expensive thing I have ever made. (Blathers is #1.)

I also wanted to use the Berroco yarn in "Coast", that I got at the same time as the Stargazing, for Otachi's spots and mouth embroidery, but since I bought it for a shrug pattern which I have not started, I decided not to risk using any. So I found a Bernat Handicrafter cotton on clearance in a nautical "sky blue". The color is close and it seemed a safer route, lest I not have enough for my shrug.

I printed out this 12 page pattern for two reasons, 1. I didn't want my phone to die, checking Evernote every two seconds, and 2. with so many intricate pieces I needed to be able to physically mark off where I was in the patterns for each piece.

Parts Head, Nose horns, head fins, forearms, body, back scales.

I was working through the parts just fine until I hit the part to make her back scales out of the crocodile stitch. I have never made anything ever using that stitch. And in this case Youtube videos only show how to make a horizontal row of scales. I watched quite a few videos, but this one was most helpful to me, since it showed how to use the pair of dc's turned horizontally to make a single scale. Took me about an hour to sort just this part out, and my chain of scales tends to curl to the left... but once it was sewed down to the body it was fine.

Each arm is made up of 5 pieces: upper and lower arm, two wing membranes and a wingtip. It was kind of hard to stuff the wingtip pieces... I was unable to get any stuffing in, until I used the eraser end of my pencil to help. For the wing membranes I used a dc instead of the tc as written. When made with a tc it came out too large for the wingtips and forearms... not sure if my tc is too loose, not done right or what.

After looking at all her pictures I saw she also put spikes and scales down the tail. I modified and rewrote her tail pattern to use popcorn stitches (like the toes) to add the side spikes in the rows so I would not have to sew all those on later. I had to tweak the order of the stitches in the rows after I connected all the three tail spikes together so that the bumps would be on the bottom and centered to the large spike of the tail which I had on top. It kind of looked like a weird lobster tail while making it... see picture and pattern below.

Tail and Back Legs.

My Tail Pattern
I realize this is unhelpful if you don't have the rest of the pattern, but you could make a weird lobster from it I guess...
Round 1. Connect the three tail claws and sc around. I used decreases to string them together and ended up with 10 sc around, which I then increased to 12 in the next row.
Round 2. SC in each stitch (12)
Round 3. SC6, popcorn stitch 4dc, sc3, popcorn stitch 4dc, sc (12)
Round 4. SC in each stitch (12)
Round 5. (Inc, SC x 3) Repeat around (15)
Round 6. SC in each stitch (15)
Round 7. SC8, popcorn stitch 4dc, sc4, popcorn stitch 4dc, sc (15)
Round 8. SC in each stitch (15)
Round 9. (Inc, SC x 4) Repeat around (18)
Round 10. SC in each stitch (18)
Round 11. SC in each stitch (18)
Round 12. SC10, popcorn stitch 4dc, sc5, popcorn stitch 4dc, sc (18)
Round 13. SC in each stitch (18)
Round 14. (Inc, SC x 5) Repeat around (21)
Round 15. SC in each stitch (21)
Round 16. SC in each stitch (21)
Round 17. SC in each stitch (21)
Round 18. SC 12, popcorn stitch 5dc, sc6, popcorn stitch 5dc, sc (21)
Round 19. SC in each stitch (21)
Round 20. (Inc, SC x 6) Repeat around (24)
Round 21. SC in each stitch (24)
Round 22. SC in each stitch (24)
Round 23. SC in each stitch (24)
Round 24. SC in each stitch (24)
Round 25. SC14, popcorn stitch 5dc, sc7, popcorn stitch 5dc, sc (24)
Round 26. SC in each stitch (24)
Round 27. (Inc, SC x 7) Repeat around (27)
Finish off and leave long tail for sewing. Stuff tail.

** Popcorn stitch is where you do 4 or 5 double crochet stitches in one sc space. Upon completing the last dc you draw up a loop, remove your hook, go back into the first dc you made, insert your hook and draw through that loop from the last dc. Then I secure it with a chain which I use for the next round.  

I wanted smaller scales for the tail so I made a second chained set of 5. They are like the 11 on the back, but instead of dc I used hdc to make the scales smaller. I also made one larger single scale for at the back of the head before the back scales and one tiny scale for the bottom of the tail.

Full set of all the scales for the back.

The glow spots are magic circles, that are closed with a slip stitch. I made mine a bit larger than in the pictures, mainly because the thickness of the yarn made larger circles, and I wanted to sew less on. On each side of the body there are two MC6's, two MC5's, and one MC4. On each side of the tail there are three MC4's and one MC3. That makes 9 on each side for a total of 18 in total. Making and sewing them on was 2 hours all by itself.

I ordered 9mm and 12mm amber slit eyes off Amazon. I had some blue and purple on hand from something else, but since the yarn is so dark, they did not really show up or stand out, hence going with amber. I also added a disk of white behind them which really helped them stand out.

Finished Otachi! Annoyed I can't seem to photograph her colors right.

Time Breakdown:
Head 30 min
Big Horns (2) 20 min
Little Horns (4) 20 min
Body 1.5 hr
Back Scales 1 hr
Forearms (2) 1 hr
Upper arms (2) 40 min
Wingtips (2) 1 hr
Wing Membranes (4) 1hr
Legs (2) 1 hr
Short tail claws (2) and Long tail claw 20 min
Tail 2 hours
Body details: above back leg spikes (2), wing tip spikes (2), knee spikes (2), chin spikes (2), tail scales (5) 1 hr
Light Blue stuff: glow spots (18), face embroidery: 3 hours
Assembly of all parts: another 8 hours (over three nights of 2-3 hours working on it)
Total time: about 25 hours

I like the way she looks with my blue shutters.

Finished size for Otachi is 17 inches from nose to tip of the tail. About 10 inch wingspan.
Difficulty: Intermediate. Parts are not too hard to make, with the exception of the crocodile stitch, but this does take a lot of time.

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.

Goblin Week and Witchsona Week

So Evan Dahm started a thing called Goblin Week a few years back. Basically you draw goblins, whatever that means to you, and post it on tumblr. I've been lurking around and looking at it for a while, but have never done anything for it. This year, I really wanted to, but never got off my butt. So I have a few sketches but most are too rough to post. So I thought I would post the one I got furthest on.

Since they live in caves, figured there must be a team that goes out and maps new areas to be expanded into. Girls are smaller than the guys so they get the jobs of exploring the smaller passageways. She's got a colander helmet with a flashlight strapped on and a necklace of glowing crystals. A winch harness to lower and raise herself. A dagger just in case of ROUSes. Hogs-hair bristle brush shoes to gently move down walls so as not to damage the cave. A large glowing crystal dangles below attached to the bottom line to light the way down.

Female Goblin Spelunker

Another kind of "week" recently surfaced on my radar as both Kate Leth and the girls from Chaos Life have participated... Witchsona Week. You draw yourself as whatever kind of witch you might be. Sounded fun so I did a little doodle for it too. Which turned into an inked drawing, which I then colored with colored pencils and scanned.

Yarn Witch

If I was a witch I might be a Yarn Witch. I really loved how in the book Howls Moving Castle that Sophie might have been a little bit of a witch since as she made hats in her shop she spoke to them, and they in turn were sold to the exact type of people she envisioned. It's like her words and hands and focus on creating, put little spells that gravitated the finished hats to the right people. That kind of magic seems very real. Since I do so much crocheting lately, I hope that each item I make carries a bit of the love and time and focus that I put into making it. I would have a magic wand crochet hook that is able to become any size I need, as well as magic ball of yarn that changes color as needed and never runs out. My necklace is pendant yarn cutter I have and some stitch markers. My familiar would be my Dragon Hat come to life. Since I put so much more time into that project than any other, and wear it so frequently, the magic rubbed off onto it over time and now it protects and keeps me warm. Also those are tabi socks, because I love weird socks and am wearing some today.

Anyway, creating objects, where before sat a pile of yarn, is pretty magical all by itself.

30DC-MG: Day 15: Dragon/Reptile Girl

Dragon girl. Thought about dragonball z and decided to take the dragon for earth and make it into a girl. Fun to try another style again.

Final Fish and Dragon Update

So I think I can safely say (fingers crossed) that I have made my very last fish hat. This final one was for my husband who has wanted one from the start. It consumed the last of several skeins so it was good to do and now he isn't left out.

Final total of fish hats made: 8

Since I was getting out a lot of yarn, I thought I would also tackle the matter of my Dragon hat's nose. Been meaning to add something to give it one to help the face feel more finished. So I started looking for a way to make the kind of cloud bubble shape I wanted. After not finding anything I liked, I then started looking for leaf patterns or tree embellishment patterns. Tried a Gingko leaf shape and didn't like it. So I went back to other leaf patterns.

Looks better with noses.

I finally settled on a maple leaf pattern. I thought at first that if it came out large enough that I would use the two lower sides of the leaf for the nostrils and leave the top for a nose ridge. But they came out pretty small so instead I made two (without the stems) and used one each for the nostrils. I sewed them down and then added black lines for the holes.

Just a shell stitch worked into the space and connections between the red and orange row.

I also added a bit of a neck ruffle down the side of the head to give the face a bit more definition and to add a bit more detail to the hat. I have a feeling that this scarf might be something that I continually add on to... Keep thinking about making the tail larger or adding legs. Or some sort of embroidery to the face, scales maybe?

Chinese Dragon Hat

So I teased you earlier last week, and again this week with images of my latest project: the Chinese Dragon Hat. I am happy to report that it is finished. I call it that because I was looking at these images for inspiration...

As I mentioned before I had the idea while making the 5 fish hats. I had originally thought that I would like to try a fish hat that looked like a koinobori flag or a red koi fish, but as that would require changing colors in the middle of rows and all manner of confusion, I decided to leave off that idea for now. Instead I thought, why not make the hat go on for a long while and be a scarf at the same time.

So I picked out 7 colors that I liked and had about one skein of: a pumpkin orange, a jake the dog  light orange, brown, khaki, hunter green, pale yellow and a dusty blue. Figured I would be upset with myself if I didn't have a blue in there since I wear so much of it.

It is as tall as I am, so about 5 1/2 feet in lenth.

I followed the fish hat patter for making the mouth. Once I got to the end I just continued the single stitch rows out for longer until I felt the head was long enough. Then to make the head blend with the body and make it just a little bit more of a long dragon head, I added a few shell rows of the same color. Then I started rotating through my colors until I reached a thickness that I felt was right for a scarf. (Following the pattern terms, I stopped decreasing at 10 shells.) I feel that it might be good to say that I had thought of making the colors random, but then decided against it because it would bother my slightly OCD brain. So I had first arranged them in a general ROYGBIV sort of order, but didn't want it to be a rainbow dragon, so instead opted for a sort of compatible light dark light dark arrangement.

You can see ears, horns, eyes and whiskers here.

I added red lips around the face and white teeth in a similar shell pattern. Once I reached a length that would wrap around my neck once, I started decreasing the shells again down to two and then fanned out a tail. I also used a half circle pattern for eyes, the shell pattern for eyebrows, a leaf pattern for ears, a modified version of the fins pattern that came with the fish pattern for horns, and a made up kind of chain for the nose whiskers. The entire project took about a week to make and sew together.

Tail Fan

I expect I will have orders once I start wearing him out in the winter...

UPDATE: Added some nostrils and a neck fin... images in this update post.

Crafty Moving

So this week will most likely be light on posts since I am in the process of buying my first home, packing, planning and working. Not much time for crafting or doodling. So stay tuned for updates, but you might just check again next monday. Apologies.

In lieu of a doodle today, I will tease you with a few images of the status of my Chinese dragon hat idea loosely based off the fish hats pattern that I have used in the past.

Ears and Horns

Head with lips and teeth, body in progress.

Here is the thought doodle in case you missed it.

Johnny Wander Fan Art

OK so next on my list of web comics is Johnny Wander by Ananth and Yuko. Found this comic because I used to read Applegeeks, which Ananth also worked on. Applegeeks has gone by the wayside but had some really cool stuff going at certain points. Anyway, Johnny Wander is more like journal comics about their real life. What keeps me coming back is the charming style that Yuko has when drawing EVERYTHING! There occasionally are stories and characters like Death and Cecilia or Lucky Penny and like everything else they have a style that I love. I also follow Yuko's tumblr which is great if you like looking at pictures of dragons, Garrus or ASoIaF stuff. I should also mention that she is one half of two people who are working on a project evolving a creature called the Exquisite Beast, which is also really cool to watch. So obviously they are awesome and they do a ton of great things.

So here is a little tiny Yuko and a dragon. I too like drawing dragons, though I have not in a very long time so it was fun to do this again. I was also surprisingly terrified to add the lines for depth and shadow to the line drawing for this image. So I scanned it first without and then again after I added them, glad I did since it makes it feel more complete I think.

Kimono

Kimono
Ink
Spring 2005

This is an old piece and like my other old pieces, its got this recurring theme of the beautiful girl and a dragon. That was my thing at the time I guess, but I didn't seem to realize it till now. I guess its really the only ones I would finish. Anyway, I call this Kimono because it is what I spent the most time on.

Mermaid and Dragon

Mermaid and Dragon
Fall 2003
Graphite

Dragon

Dragon (inspired by DnD)
Fall 2004
graphite

Asian Girl and Dragon

Asian Girl and Dragon
September 2004
Graphite and Ink on Paper

Dragon and Girl

Dragon and Girl
August 2003
graphite on paper