It's a dragon

This is another knitted-over-break item. This is the Dragon from the Dragon and Friends pattern by Barbara Prime (Fuzzy Mitten Knits). I've bought a couple of her patterns over the years but I think this is the first one I actually knit up. It's a very clear pattern and it works up nicely.

I used one of the inexpensive Serenity brand yarns from the craft store. I forget more of the details about the yarn and didn't keep the ball band - but it's a chunky weight soft spun acrylic.

I decided that as this was a dragon, and as dragons were a feature of stories about early Britain, that the dragon possibly needed an Anglo-Saxon name. The only Anglo-Saxon names I was familiar with were Hengist and Horsa (and that, not from history class, but from a joke in one of the Christmas crackers we had one year: "What kind of instrument do Hengist and Horsa play? The Anglo-Saxophone." Fortunately our British friend was having Christmas dinner with us that year and she was able to explain Hengist and Horsa).

So I named the dragon Hengist.



The pattern produces quite a large toy - big enough to be, as another pattern designer noted about a toy she designed, lap-sitter size.

You can see the little teeth in there. They're embroidered on. I think they contribute a big part of the charm of this toy.

Wait, let me take a better photo of the teeth:



You can also see the little bobbles you knit in to serve as the nostrils (very clever of the pattern writer) and you can see his eyes (at least, the right one) a little better - I used cat eyes from Suncatcher Eyes. Because dragons are (presumably) reptiles, and many reptiles have those slit-pupilled eyes. I liked the effect of these better than the plain, solid black "boot button" type eyes I tried out at first.

The wings are also extremely nicely designed, so I had to take a picture of them:



The pattern comes with instructions for wings, spines, and ears, with the note that you can add any or none of these to customize your dragon. I wanted all of them, especially the wings, because the wings are really cool looking. (And I wanted ears because I think ears make a dragon look friendlier, and I wanted Hengist to be a friendly dragon).

Looking up a bit of background on Hengist and Horsa - they were legendary Anglo-Saxon brothers (it seems a lot of nations have founding legends tied up with pairs of brothers). And the names mean, respectively, "stallion" and "horse."

Which of course pleases me, given my level of MLP fandom.

At any rate: I highly recommend the pattern. Lots of fun to make and a nice finished product.