The results are in...

 

First off as I was un pinning the dragon to take him off the board I realized I had made a mistake.

I blocked him perfectly, there is a nice straight line.  It just goes down his belly.  I accidentally blocked him upside down, and yes there is a top and a bottom, the eyes are set 2 stitches above the 1/2 way mark so they are visibly on the top section so I couldn't just flip the whole project.

The blocking still worked well and like I said the belly has a nice straight line, but because I could not see exactly where I was pinning though on the other side the top is not as straight.   So if I do make an other dragon, or decide some of my other amigurumi could do with some blocking I know now that its possible to block 3Dforms, and easy to do.  Just need to triple check, is it right side up, and is it straight before steaming.

I did manage to run a bit 17 gauge rustproof wire through him from nose to tail.  This is wire I had on hand from when I was trying to make a chain mail dice bag for my husband (someone else made and sent him one before I finished so I just set it all aside) I know it came from our local hardware store, its electric fence wire, I went with it because its specifically says its rustproof, and soft enough I do not need anything special to manipulate it just some needle nose pliers that have a wire cutter built in.  I was able to make a small loop with the tip of the wire and tie off a slip knot onto it with some scrap yarn, I then threaded threw my darning needle.  I worked the needle threw the body (popping out every 3-4 inches and working back into the exact spot I came out of) using the needle and scrap yarn to pull and guide the wire all the way through.

I also got my base line down for adding in his spin hair.  I took about a yard and a half of the hair color (blue) and used my yarn needle to embroider a chain stitch all the way down the spine.  You can see in the photos it is not 100% straight but its dang close.  Once I get all the strands of hair connected and brushed you will not see the spine and it will appear straight.  I will be taking 4 inch strands and using a larks knot to attach them to the chain stitch going down one side of the spine and back up the other side so the mane will look nice and full, also so the hair line will look the same on both sides as apposed to if I just held 2 strands and went threw both loops of the chain the sides would look visibly different.

The cats both seemed to think he was a toy meant just for them to attack while I was working on him so there was almost no way to work with him or even get a photo with one one of the two kitties taking notice and literally jumping in on the photo opp.  Dayton in the front, Connie in the back if you can spot her, they thought it was a game of who could attack first when I was running the wire through (it was waving all over the place) not to mention I did have about 1 foot of yarn dangling off the tail end from where I had finished embroidering so that was probably my first kittie attracting mistake.

Chinese Dragon WIP (and steam blocking acrylic)

I am currently working on making a white and blue Chinese style Dragon.

I am keeping some rough notes, so I will have a bare bones pattern to share at the end of it all.

For those of you thinking it looks like a white snake and not at all like a dragon, well yes it doesnt look like a European Dragon with a stocky body and huge wings.  Chinese dragons do not have wings at all as its believed they have mystical power they use to fly, they are said to be a long serpentine body with 4 legs, and a long ridge or hair line from head all the way to the tail.

I had seriously been thinking of wiring this guy as I worked him up but that did not happen.  I might wind up trying to slide some wire in him now that the base of the body is finished.

I had to pin and steam block him, as all crocheters know when you work in the round you get a bit of twisting as you work.  Well with a small diameter tube you tend  to get a lot of twist so much so it twisted all the way around, and that would make it more work for me when I try to run a Ruff down the spine.

So my awsome husband ran down to the basement and got my blocking mat so I could 'block' my dragon.   The first1/3 of the dragon was pinned down fairly easily it had almost no twist, it was when I got to the last 1/3 that the twist was really bad.  I had to put 12 T-pins into the end tail to get my rows to line up as close to perfect as I could.

From here I went back over double checking the line of the spine was straight, which is good because I had it twisting off still so I was able to fix it fairly painlessly.  I then used my garment/upholstery steamer I got on sale (only $19!!)  and slowly steamed it.  Holding the steam head about one inch from the work for15 to 20 seconds per section with a 3 1/2 inch head over 2-3 ft of dragon before moving on.  I went over the body till the 10oz of water I had put in the machine was used up (give or take an ounce).  I know I got at the least 4 passes of the body fully with some focused steaming on the tail end where the worst of the twisting occurred.  You can get the same blocking results with a iron that has a steamer setting I would just recommend you hold it farther away as the iron's heat itself will affect the yarn (2-4 inches).


I have taken out most of the T-pins but the head and last tail pin there has been no attempt to twist back up but I will be leaving it pinned over night so that it can dry up as the steam did leave it a bit damp.

I also got some time to paint up some eyes so he will be sporting custom painted eyes, I was going for a silver sky blue, I will try to get a better photo of the head later.

On Sunday I will hopefully know if I will be hosting a 30-60 minute pannel at a local anime/geek convention KawaCon.  Its been up in the air for a  while now when I was ask I said yes right away they just have to work out details on their end, it on hinges on if they have an open room and time slot.

Also I will be out at Animeggroll Sunday (1/18/15) helping people make/finish some Octos from 12-2!!