Dragons

 

 

So here are some lovely crochet dragons that I made for the school fete, they then got bagged up with some lollies and put on a stall.

Dragons ready for Fill a Bag

 

…but before they flew off to places new I made a note of the pattern I had made up, just incase anyone else would like to have a go at making these little dragons.

Now I am not sure how accurate this is, or if it is written in the conventional language- but hopefully you will get the general idea. Oh and it’s the first pattern I have written so if it even makes sense that would be good.

Hook size: I used a size 3 hook.

Wool: I used some DK wool that I had lying around.

Body:

Round 1: ch2, 6 sc in second chain from hook , Join (6)

Round 2 : ch1 (2 sc in each stitch) x 6, Join (12)

Round 3:ch1 (1sc , 2sc) x 6, Join (18)

Round 4: ch1 (1sc, 1sc, 2sc ) x 6, Join (24)

Round 5- 12: 1sc in each stitch      (you can do more or less rounds depending on how big you would like your dragon, if you do a different number you will also have to adjust the length of the chain row for the spines)

Decreasing rounds.

Round 13: (sc 2 tog, 1sc,1sc) x 6 (18)

Round 14 and 15: 1sc in each stitch

Round 16: (sc 2tog, 1sc) x 6 (12)

Round 17: (sc 2tog) x 6 (6)

Round 18-20: 1sc in each stitch, Fasten off, leave neck open for stuffing. (this makes the neck of the dragon, you can do more rounds if you want a longer neck).

The body should look something like this.

Head:

Round 1: ch2, 6sc in second chain from hook, Join (6)

Round 2: ch1 (2sc in each stitch) x 6, Join (12)

Round 3 -8 : 1sc in each stitch  (This makes the dragon’s snout)

Increasing rounds.

Round 9: ch1 , (1sc, 2sc) x 6 (18)

Round 10: 1sc in each stitch

Round 11: (sc, sc, 2sc) x 6 (24)

Round 12- 14: 1sc in each stitch

Decreasing rounds

Round 15: (sc 2 tog, sc,sc) x 6 (18)

Round 16: (sc 2tog , sc) x 6 (12)

Round 17: (sc 2 tog) x 6 (6)

Fasten off.

Head should look something like this.

Legs and feet (make 2)

Round 1: ch2, 6sc in second chain from hook, Join (6)

Round 2: ch1, (2sc) x 6, Join (12)

Round 3: ch1, (sc, 2sc) x 6, Join (18)

Round 4 and 5: 1sc in each stitch

Round 6: sc 2tog x6, sc x 6 (12)

Round 7 and 8 : 1sc in each stitch

Round 9: sc 2tog x 6 (6)

Round 10- 15: 1sc in each stitch

Fasten off.

 

Arms (make 2)

Round 1: ch2 , 4sc in second chain from hook. Join (4)

Round 2: 2sc x4 (8)

Round 3 – 11: 1sc in each stitch, Fasten off.

Feet/legs and arms.

 

Wings (make 2)

Round 1: ch2, 6sc in second chain from hook, Turn (6)

Round 2: ch3, dc in stitch, (ch1, dc in stitch) x 5, Turn (12)

Round 3: ch3, 2dc in stitch, (ch1, 2dc) x 5, Turn

Round 4: Join new colour. (ch3, sl st into first chain, sl st x 5) x 6 .

Fasten off.

Wings, seen from front and back

 

Spines and tail

Row 1: ch 50

Row 2: sl st in second chain from hook, (sc in one chain, (hdc,dc,hdc) in next chain,sc in next, sl st in next) x 12  (Should take you to the end of the chain.

Fasten off.

(You can adjust these to make spikes spikier or bumpier as you choose).

 

Tail and spines

Head and body, joined at neck

 

Making up.

Stuff body and head and sew up.

Sew head to body, joining back of head to end of neck.

Stuff legs, but do not sew up.

DO NOT stuff arms.

Attach to body, keeping ends of legs open.

When attaching arms sew through both thicknesses so arms look flat.

Arms and legs attached

 

Next attach the spines, I found it easiest to do this by lying the dragon on its tummy and sewing from one side of row to the other. Start at head end, just after last increase round(round 11) and go until 3 rounds from base of body.

Spines attached, there will be a bit left for the tail, not sewn onto body.

 

Next attach wings, these attach to the top of the arms and then bend slightly to go down the back.

 

 

 

Wings attached

And finally for the tail.

Find the unattached end of the spine / tail piece

Attach body coloured wool to end (on straight side), I did this by making a slip knot and then drawing a loop through chain on spine /tail piece and the slip knot.

Then sc in every chain until you reach where it is attached to body. Bring loop through a place on the body to attach tail to body.

sc in every stitch back to end of tail, turn , sc into every stitch back to body. Securely attach to body. Fasten off.

 

 

Finally I used embroidery cotton to make eyes, nostrils and toes.

Hope you enjoy making these.

Chairs and Plastic Bags

Well it has been a long time since my last post. I have been busy doing lots of things, trying to complete the projects I have had in the back of my mind for ages.

One of them was to use up the pile of plastic carrier bags I had ‘collected’. I needed to cover the seats of the kitchen chairs which were beginning to split. So I made plarn and crocheted it up to hide the splits in the seats. I also used some of the bags for fused plastic to cover the 4th seat.
What do you think?

Day 2

Day 2 of being a house wife! My youngest has started full time school and my days between 9 and 3 are now all mine and mine alone. What to do?

Anyway I am very, very good at procrastinating so I will decide on an answer to that later. Right now I am going to show you the half finished robot we made in the holidays and post a picture of my two children ready for school yesterday so it’s captured forever in t’internet land.

Not sure what order wordpress will display them in, but it should be obvious which is which.

I think the robot is destined to always be half finished, as the children lost interest after we added the jousting arm,and they realised he wasn’t going to be quite as good as they imagined. He now stands in the corner of the playroom slowly falling forward as his legs aren’t strong enough. Sure this is a metaphor for something, not quite sure what though.

 

End of term.

Wow, that went quick didn’t it. A whole school year flown by and here we are in the last full week of  term.

The paper mache beads I blogged about a month (or more) ago did not turn out that well. After being baked in the oven, sanded and painted they still needed a lot more work to make them presentable. I have put them in a box for another day. They were going to be  an end of term present for my children’s teachers, so I have had to think of something else they can make that will still look ok.

Instead we made some fimo buttons, very easily made by squidging a little piece of fimo between finger and thumb and then making two holes in it. When these were baked I lightly sanded them and we threaded them onto copper wire.              This was quite fiddly for P, but T managed ok.  The wire was then bent into a heart shape   and…                                                                                                         

I think I shall attach it to some coloured card and stick a ‘Handmade by…’ sticker on it.

A childhood ambition fulfilled

One of my memories of childhood is my mum collecting the seeds from melons and washing and drying them. She would keep the dried seeds in a pot and when we asked why she told us she wanted to make a melon seed necklace. I don’t know if she ever did make that necklace, maybe when she reads this she will be inspired to start collecting them again… or maybe not.

Anyway I always wanted to make a melon seed necklace and found myself instinctively scooping out the seeds from a melon and washing and drying them the other day. On a whim I dyed half red and half blue and there they sat in two yogurt pots on my worktop for a few weeks.

Then my daughter announced on the Wednesday of half term that she would like a Jubilee Party, just me, her and her brother.  Alright then.

So we bought some cheese and pineapple (but forgot the cocktail sticks), made a trifle and iced some buns. We also played Hunt the Flag, (which P was very good at hiding) and made……. melon seeds bracelets! Not quite necklaces but they did take a lot longer than I thought.

Incase you are wondering how this beautiful bracelet was made here are the instructions:

1. Take a piece of strong, but thin thread (I used all 6 strands of embroidery cotton) cut it a bit longer than distance around the intended recipients wrist.

2. Tie a big knot at one end and thread a needle to the other. The needle needs to be sharp and thin enough to go through the centre of a melon seed.

3. Push the needle through the centre of a melon seed and down the thread.

4. When you have enough seeds on your thread tie up the ends. I did some kind of slip knot thing so that we could adjust the tightness of the bracelet.

Easy! Although, not really suitable for very small children as the needle needs to be quite sharp. It can be adapted by making holes in the melon seeds before giving them to small children to thread on a string, but I split a lot of seeds that way. 

I am not sure if melon seed necklaces do, or can,get more complicated I have googled them but not found anything that inspiring.

And so here is a picture to sum up my half-term. My 4 year old carefully icing a bun, wearing the crown he made at the museums make and take that he was adamant he didn’t want to go to.  In the end he was very pleased that we did go. He put the crown on yesterday,” I do look good in this don’t I ?”

Left to their own devices…..

my two children created a band.  P was on drums and percussion, made out of unturned plastic containers, a wooden snake and a comb, T was string and vocals, with a guitar made out of paper, sellotape and elastic bands. A wonderful song about goodys followed.

We have also been making beads from mached newspaper. P and I tore newspaper into small pieces, covered it with boiling water and left it to stand for a couple of hours. I then added lots of PVA glue and the three of us made balls of grey mush, squeezing out as much liquid as possible.

They are supposed to take a few days to dry, then we drill holes through the middle to make beads, and then paint and varnish them. Will let you know how they turned out.

Salad Days

Here’s  a quick one. 

Made from the bottom of a  plastic milk bottle, lined with newspaper.

Added some compost and some salad/lettuce seeds.

Watered regularly and after about 4 weeks we had a living salad pot, at a fraction of the supermarket prices. 

Satisfied my son’s need to get messy, and he has even eaten some of the salad it produced!

Growing up

What a sobering title for this post, I have been finding it increasingly hard to post on this blog lately simply because we haven’t been doing any rubbish crafting. My children are growing up too fast, the youngest one is at school 5 mornings a week and when he gets home he would much rather watch a bit of telly or play UNO than  do anything crafty. The problem has been trying to find something he can engage with and be excited about.

The things he seems to like doing are

1. playing UNO

2. playing with his sister

3. playing LEGO

4. playing UNO

5. watching telly

6. playing on the computer/ iPad/ Wii

7. making a mess (today I discovered a whole toilet roll carefully rolled from kitchen to lounge, hooked over the airer on the radiator and rolled back again)

8. playing UNO

Not much scope for crafting there. We did make some LEGO style storage tubs. We took a margarine tub and glued bottle tops onto it, then covered it in shiny, metallic chocolate wrappers (it was a golden one for treasure). We got about halfway through and he decided he’d had enough.  So there we are, any rubbish crafting I do now will have to be done by me, on my own- nowhere near as much fun. Maybe it’s not just the children that are growing up.

If I have painted a picture of my son as slightly lacking in imagination and being slightly UNO obsessed it was not intentional. He is an amazing person (although I am biased), they are learning about electricity at school this week, and he was pondering how he could take the pinball machine into school to show them (as it runs on electricity). He decided ‘If we had a bag bigger than the pinball machine and a friendly giant we could take the pinball maching into school.’  Yes, I suppose we could.

The two of my children together seem to amuse themselves with not much input from me, here are some photos of the bench they made out of branches they found  when we went on a picnic. Together they dragged or carried all the branches to where we were sitting and then worked to put them all together.  I wonder if this interest for outdoor art could be used to make some garden art out of the many, many, many sticks we still seem to bring home from everywhere we go….

Granny’s New Life

Hello again to my regular readers and welcome to any new readers, look at this link (not the photo, I just couldn’t get that in the right place)  http://www.thedailybuzz.com.au/2012/03/20-things-to-do-with-toilet-paper-rolls/, I am number 19 ! I had over a hundred hits  in one day from this link. I think the article has been copied onto another site and I am getting a lot of hits from there at the moment, so if you are new to this blog please do leave a comment to say Hello.

Anyway I suppose I should try to raise the creativity of my creations, the sports cars were probably one of the best things I’ve created to be honest.  But that will happen next time, this is just another post with an uninspired idea….

My mother in law retired on Friday from her job of many years in a primary school. I think she had been planning retirement for a while, but in the end her reasons for retirement became more pressing and she retired a term earlier than expected. I decided we probably should make her something to mark the occasion so the children and I created ‘Granny’s Box of Ideas’. We glued lots of pictures onto a box and covered it in sticky-back plastic, my 7 yr old daughter than thought of a few things Granny could do when she has ten minutes or so spare… I was hoping they’d turn into aspirational life improving ideas, such as ‘Do something to make you laugh’ or philosophical questions, such as ‘What is beauty?’, but these ideas were turned down. Even my ‘go on holiday’ idea was dismissed with a ” How’s she going to do that if she’s only got ten minutes?” So there are ten mundane but pleasant (almost all pleasant, there is a ‘Kiss Grandad on the lips’ suggestion in there) ideas for Granny to do. unfortunately I don’t know her well enough to add some of my own in there. I’m hoping she will add things she would like to do and save them up for another time. Well I’m sure she’ll like it anyway.

How long has it been?

Wow, over a month since my last post. I thought it was probably a good idea to put on something for Easter.

We have a lot of yogurt pots skulking in the corner of our kitchen at the moment, they are waiting to be taken into school for their junk modelling but we used a few the other day to make an Easter Chick.

Very simple really, take two yogurt pots and sellotape the open ends together. Use PVA glue to cover them in  yellow tissue paper.  Add wings, eyes and beak.                                                                                                         

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 We have also been making fimo flowers for my daughter’s Rainbow leaders- my daughter  is leaving on Friday to start Brownies after Easter.

The leaders are called Poppy and Snowdrop. These were supposed to be small brooches but we got a bit carried away!