I’ve been on a roll.
I’ve had some sewing projects on my mind for some time, and have finally tackled them. This dragon pattern is from Winterwood Toys in Australia, and I fell in love with it when I first saw it. I bought the kit, which is a divine rainbow hand dyed wool felt, but I wanted to try it with plain fabric as well. Also, I only get one chance with that wonderful wool, so I wanted to do a practice run anyway. When I do the wool, it will be for my new little one. But big brother has announced that he wants one too. My fingers will be quite sore from stitching!
I had visions of using fun fabrics and the rolled edge serger stitch to make all sorts of fast and fabulous toys, but learned quickly, during my recent foray into the land of piggies, that that wasn’t to be. I didn’t even attempt to use the serger on this dragon. The pattern, when I opened it, seemed so small. The display that I thought I remembered in the store was much larger. My memory is probably off. I enlarged the pattern by quite a bit, and the end product is still smaller than I’d imagined it would be, but I think it’s delightful. I made some modifications, in that I stuffed the wings and didn’t quilt them, and I made my own mane pattern, since the original pattern was missing that detail. Also, I stuffed it. It looks like a pompadour in the photo!
I was planning on making two, but all this detail work is more than I imagined, so I’m not ready to take on another. Except the wool versions. And then I’ll be hand-stitching. I’m finding that I enjoy the wool and the hand-stitching.
All in all, I love the look of these small toys, but the execution is excrutiating. My fingers are sore from stitching and turning and stuffing such tiny pieces. I don’t know how toy makers do it. It’s a fun project to tackle once in a blue moon though!
