CD- Wiring the legs and toes

 Above is the finished front set of legs, fully wired and sewn into the body.  They stand up all on their own with no instability.  I realized as I was taking the photo I had sewn the legs in farther up the body then I marked had off.  I think once he is finished and I pose him it wont be noticeable or even make much difference.


What I did was take 2 pieces of wire about 12 inches long.  I bent the first piece in half and slid it all the way threw the body where I wanted the legs to to, then slipped the other piece threw the bend and interlocked them by bending it.  Think of it like to U shapes with one dangling from the bottom of the other.   I used the piece that was going threw the body to pull the other leg wire inside the body so the join is hidden in the middle.  I had been trying to catch the spine wire at first to try and have the legs connected joined over it but I was not able to pin it down the way I was putting the wiring though.              
                      
I slid the legs onto the wire after I was sure the leg wires where locked together and wouldn't fall out.  I took this time to sew the top of the legs into the body. 

At the toes, I took the wire, bending one side to the front middle toe and the other to the back longer toe.   I bent it back onto itself snipping it just short of the leg section, I found I had about 1 1/2 inch worth of waste wire.  I then used my tail end of yarn to pick up the sides of the toe and sew over the wire with a whip stitch closing the toe up over the wire.  I made sure to sew up the two front toes in the same manor, and criss crossed over the bottom of the leg to close up the small gap.

I did not stuff any part of the leg or toes although in hindsight I could have stuffed the top of the leg with a grape sized amount of stuffing and just rolled the leg a bit to get the stuffing to evenly distribute through it.

I just need to make an other set of legs for the back, then I will get started on all the small things and adding the hair along the spine.

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.