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Thursday 8 September 2016

If I had wings...

Last year I went to my first ever comic con York Unleashed and it was amazing. I loved it, and I wanted to do more. I'm not the geekiest person in the world but I am a modest fan of most things. I am more of a fantasy book nerd. And I love dressing up as anyone who has worked with me for the last 20 years will know with my christmas eve outfits.
But York Unleashed fueled this desire further. And I began to wonder what I could do for 2016...

It was hard to decide what to do, but I love dragons so I don't know why it took me so long. It was a little general and of no particular show, just a love of fantasy and costume in a welcoming and accepting environment.

Oh and I would make it out of crochet.

Well, at least it would be unique, thought I, now where do I start?

A bit of tape, some wire and a baseball cap. Oh and some cheap wool. I hadn't decided on a colour for my crochet dragon head, but the bargin bin solved that.

And a shape was born.

I started on the nose, with the basic round amigurmi technique using treble stitches (UK stitches) if anyone wished to know. This is the nearest I have to a pattern for this as some one asked me what pattern I used and it was hard to explain I just crocheted round the wire frame until it fit.

Then I made a beanie hat.
Now I needed to work on the detail.
I had to learn a new stitch called crocodile stitch, which really did my head in for a while, but once I got the hang of it, it looked ace, like dragon scales.

I started on the spine/tail next. A tube of pipe lagging covered in more crochet all the way down to my toes. It took a while, and more wool than I expected but as my dragon was going to be a mishmash of colours that didn't matter so much.

Wings were difficult. Wire and tape helped, and more crochet tubes. But what was I going to do for arms and legs because this was going to be a dragon not a wyvern.
And every dragon needs a belly to store fire in. I used a large mandala pattern I found shared by Moogly from  Lion Brand lion brand archives
And with a sinking feeling I realised my wings  needed more than struts and I had to find a way to fix them onto my top so they could sit closed so I didn't poke anyones eye out while I walked around.
This was a very freehand sort of crochet and worked very well for wing membranes.

On the morning of the comic con I was still crocheting triangles for my spine scales, another amigurumi increasing half circle flattened and sewn together at the open end. But I never had time to put it all together and see what I looked like until I got round to my sisters an hour before.


Think it worked.
And to prove I really walked around in this costume, a couple of photos from the York Unleashed site that other people took of me. (If I have put photos up here and I do not have permission, please let me know and I will take them down.)

Amy Oatway took a couple of amazing ones. amyoatway photography Thank you.

And now, my dragon stretches out on the back of the sofa, while I rack my brains for what I could possibly think of doing for next year...
Any one?