All posts tagged dragon

ScrapHappy August 2022

Last month’s ScrapHappy bollard covers have proved very popular, but they weren’t my only ScrapHappy make related to the Eisteddfod. Lots of people and businesses were putting up Welsh dragon bunting, or bunting in the colours of the flag – white, green and red. Since I’d already unearthed a pile of scrap yarn in these colours, it was a relatively quick job to knock up some bunting:

However, I like to ring the changes, and now the Eisteddfod is over, I thought it would be nice to have some multi-coloured bunting. The thing about this is that I can use absolutely any scraps, so I had a rummage through some of the bags of left-overs that I have upstairs in the shop and found a whole lot of colours that I probably wouldn’t have chosen, but that should make some cheerful decorations. I started on Wednesday, so I haven’t got very far yet, but it shouldn’t be too long before I have enough to make a useable string:

-oOo-

I’ve been inspired to write this (and future) ScrapHappy posts by Kate, Tall Tales from Chiconia. On the fifteenth of every month lots of folk often publish a ScrapHappy post, do check them out:

Kate, Gun, Eva, Sue , Lynda, Birthe, Turid, Susan, Cathy, Tracy, Jill, Jan (me), Moira, Sandra, Chris, Alys, Kerry, Claire, Jean, Jon, Hayley, Dawn, Gwen, Bekki , Sue L, Sunny, Kjerstin, Vera, Nanette, Ann, Dawn 2 , Bear, Noreen, Preeti, Edith and Jule

If you fancy joining, contact Kate and she’ll add you to the list. It would be lovely to see more non-sewing posts, but any use of scraps is welcome.

12 Comments

by The Snail of Happiness on August 15, 2022 • Permalink

Posted in craft, Scrap Happy

Tagged bollard, crochet, dragon, draig goch, yarnbombing, yarnstorming

Posted by The Snail of Happiness on August 15, 2022

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2022/08/15/scraphappy-august-2022/

ScrapHappy July 2022

I never had a shortage of scraps, but with the opening of the shop I have access to all sorts of scrappy items that simply weren’t in my stash. Many people very generously give me things that are left over from their own projects and which they don’t envisage a use for. In the future, this is likely to lead to all sorts of projects that are out of my usual comfort zone, but this month I’ve made just the sort of thing you would expect from me, albeit with a combination of my own and other people’s scrap yarn…. a crochet bollard cover.

Outside the shop are two wooden bollards to stop vehicles from parking on the pavement. You probably haven’t even noticed them in the pictures of the shop exterior, which is precisely why I thought that they might need brightening up. So here is the first of what is likely to be many…

It’s the Eisteddfod in Tregaron (i.e. up the road) at the end of the month, so Welsh flag decorations are all the rage around the area, and this is my contribution. I’m bringing it in every night as I really don’t want to lose it, but it’s getting a lot of public admiration and has been much-photographed over the few days it’s been out.

-oOo-

I’ve been inspired to write this (and future) ScrapHappy posts by Kate, Tall Tales from Chiconia. On the fifteenth of every month lots of folk often publish a ScrapHappy post, do check them out:

If you fancy joining, contact Kate and she’ll add you to the list. It would be lovely to see more non-sewing posts, but any use of scraps is welcome.

14 Comments

by The Snail of Happiness on July 15, 2022 • Permalink

Posted in craft, Scrap Happy

Tagged bollard, crochet, dragon, draig goch, yarnbombing, yarnstorming

Posted by The Snail of Happiness on July 15, 2022

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2022/07/15/scraphappy-july-2022/

Fly, my pretty!

Sometimes, you write a comment on someone’s blog post and it leads you down a very interesting path… for example, I never expected that my comment on The Contented Crafter’s blog would result in me owning the picture that the post related to. I simply said, of her lovely creation, that ‘I would have it on my wall in a heartbeat!’ In no time at all the picture was offered to me in exchange for a dragon. Inspired by the one that went to Narf in Tasmania to guard her plants:

A dragon for Narf in Tasmania

this one, however, was to be a water dragon…

And so I started the hunt for appropriate wool… none to be had locally, but plenty of choice on the internet. I chose “aqua” as the main colour, with support from “oxygen”(lighter) and “peacock” (darker).

Colours for a water dragon

Originally, I had a vision of an undulating dragon, but somehow as I worked on it, I couldn’t create the shape I had envisaged and after some frogging I made a much straighter body. I then decided to make the spines down the back sinuous by creating two intertwined rows in different colours… like a meandering river. As a water dragon, he could not have feet like a terrestrial dragon, so I made him webs for improved swimming ability!

Adding the spines

I made the wings in “oxygen” and edged them and then remembered that I had a few freshwater pearls that would provide some appropriate embellishment. In the same box as the pearls, however, I came across an old film canister containing pearlescent beads. As soon as I saw them, I knew that they, not the half-dozen pearls, were just the thing.

Working on the wings

But what about the eyes…? I tried mother-of-pearl, but the poor creature looked dead. I tried black , like the Tasmanian dragon, but they were too stark, I went to every shop in the area that sells buttons and couldn’t find anything that spoke to me so I resorted to e-bay – the world’s biggest haberdashery shop. There I was tempted by all sorts of glass buttons and I ended up ordering a selection because I simply couldn’t decide which would look best. In the end, I used vintage Czechoslovakian turquoise glass buttons, but now I have quite a few other buttons that will make great eyes on dragons to come!

Blue glass eyes

I decorated the wings and spines with the pearlescent beads, and added some darker beads to the edges of the wings. Had this dragon been going somewhere in the UK, I would have wired the wings to give them extra support to counter the weight of the beads and make them poseable, but I was concerned that an x-ray at customs revealing a network of fine wires might result in the untimely destruction of the dragon in a controlled explosion (and it is, after all, a water dragon not a fire dragon). The final touches involved some needle sculpting and silver tufts on ears and chin.

And then the dragon was flying off to New Zealand and a new life…

Arthur

Arthur

It turns out that bartering for art is very satisfying!

32 Comments

by The Snail of Happiness on April 20, 2015 • Permalink

Posted in craft

Tagged barter, beads, crochet, dragon, exchange, glass buttons, The Contented Crafter

Posted by The Snail of Happiness on April 20, 2015

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2015/04/20/fly-my-pretty/

Playing hooky

Today I’m supposed to be editing a paper on forest economics, but it’s not very exciting and so I keep picking up my crochet hook instead. The particular piece of editing does not need to be sent back until next week, so the temptation to do something else (and more creative, although less lucrative) is really strong, especially since the dragon neck warmer commission is starting to take shape and I’m rather enjoying the scale pattern that makes up the bulk of it:

Dragon scales

The client selected yellow eyes, so those are inserted and there’s nothing fiddly in the pattern for about another 60 rows. My last post yielded some useful comments about having a few ‘attention grabbers’ on my future craft stall, and I may make another of these dragons for that purpose as I think it’s going to be quite striking. Anyway, here is progress so far (eventually there will be horns and spines too on the head):

Dragon progress

But that’s not the only thing I have been up to in the past few days. I decided as a bit of light relief to continue making dish/wash cloths (without patterns) and I’ve added two more to the stock, that’s three since Saturday. These are fairly quick to make and are using up cotton yarn that I have quite a bit of, so they feel like a winner in terms of de-stashing.

This week’s cloths – too nice to use?

And finally, I want to share a piece of work that I made weeks ago, but has only just reached its new owner. As one of my random crafts of kindness, I responded to Pauline The Contented Crafter’s appeal for lovely things to go to Marlene, who is ‘In Search of It All‘. This is what Pauline wrote:

Marlene has recently moved into her new forever home and has been hard at work turning what might have been described as a pigs ear into a silk purse. Marlene has a china cabinet and loves keepsakes. I am going to [possibly make and] send Marlene a small New Zealand icon. Would you care to [possibly make and] send her something that will represent you to her so that every time her eyes fall upon your gift, she thinks of you. Wouldn’t that be the grandest thing!

So, what better to represent me than some crochet? But I also really wanted to send her a piece of my paper porcelain plus I wanted to acknowledge the lovely links we all share through blogging. So here is what I came up with:

A random present

Roses from scrap yarn

It’s just decorative, although you could use it as a pin cushion (voodoo roses, anyone?). The base is made from some British wool from Blacker Yarns and the crochet roses are made from some of the yarn oddments sent to me by Jenny at Simply Hooked along with the squares she donated to make another charity blanket. I’m rather pleased with the result.

Well, that’s probably enough hooky for one day, I’d better get back to work…

16 Comments

by The Snail of Happiness on February 4, 2015 • Permalink

Posted in blogging, craft

Tagged cotton, crochet, dishcloth, dragon, facecloth, roses, wool, yarn

Posted by The Snail of Happiness on February 4, 2015

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2015/02/04/playing-hooky/

The eyes have it

Commissions are interesting things… I have a love-hate relationship with them.

On the negative side, you can end up working with a yarn you don’t like, or making an item that you find deeply unappealing. There’s also the issue of deadlines; it takes quite a long time to make many items and clients sometimes do not appreciate this. Then there’s the need to manage expectations: handmade items are very variable and are always individual: however closely you follow a pattern and ensure you use the same yarn there are going to be differences, which customers who are used to buying mass-produced items do not always appreciate. And finally there’s the problem of making sure your time is not undervalued… an almost impossible task sometimes!

However, commissions can encourage you to broaden your horizons and have a go at something you would never have dreamed of making otherwise. They also provide the opportunity to use new materials and sometimes an excuse to work with a yarn you’ve been hankering after for a while! In addition, you can really make someone’s day when you hand over the finished object… especially nice when you get some money or a bartered object in return. Lastly, you sometimes get to buy things you would otherwise never have owned (however temporarily)…

Today I had the joy of receiving a package to allow me to continue work on a commission. In fact, to be honest, I’m not sure that this particular piece of work will get bought by the person who originally asked for it, as I’m not certain she’ll like the way it comes out, but I know someone will want it at some point. The original request was ‘could you make a dragon scarf?’ To clarify, this is a scarf in the shape of a dragon rather than a scarf for a dragon (I don’t fancy knitting with rockwool!). I found a pattern and immediately started making modifications before realising that I was going to need some suitable eyes. I don’t often make toys, so I don’t have safety eyes… I usually sew them or use buttons… but in this case I really wanted to use some slit-pupil safety eyes.

And so started the internet hunt. This resulted in the discovery that pretty much the only such eyes I could get in the right size in the UK were yellow. Of course, I’m awkward, and I wasn’t convinced that yellow would look good, in fact I wasn’t sure what colour I did want. So, away to etsy to see what was available…. whereupon I found a wonderful shop selling eyes of all shapes, sizes, colours and varieties… in the US. After a little dithering I decided to bite the bullet and order a selection pack. Apparently, these are suitable for ‘dragons, frogs, cats, mermaids and fairies’:

A lovely selection of colours

So, this morning I have been having fun with them. Crochet is great: being full of holes you can insert and remove the eyes as much as you like until you are happy with their placement and your colour choice. I still can’t quite decide which to use but I have enjoyed playing…