Sunday, June 6, 2010

Lola The Dragon


When you were small, did you ever want a pet dragon? Did you love Pete's Dragon? Puff The Magic Dragon? Dudley the Dragon? or even Dragon from Shrek!?
I did. My older brother got a stuffed Puff, and I got something else -what, I cannot remember. I am thinking Puff was my version of Brown Bear. The toy we got when we were born. As I am 50% sure of this, I am sticking to it. I loved Brown Bear then, and I still love her now, she's almost 24 years old and still makes me smile....
...anyway, back to dragons!
I have a Twitter account. Laugh away.
Done now? OK!
I have a Twitter account and have some amazingly creative people on it.
I came upon Mariska Vos-Bolman and her Fluffels, through Shanalogic's tweets.
Mariska put up a SUPERsuper darling pattern that I fell hard for.
With my misplaced understanding, I thought the pattern was $15 once converted into Canadian funds. A good friend told me that I was wrong, and it was only $9.
Even though Yoki was tugging my heart strings, $15 seemed steep. $9 seemed more reasonable.
I hopped onto my PayPal and purchased the pattern. Shhh..I am supposed to be saving money, but I figured "what the hey!".
Since the pattern was a .pdf and sent to my computer, I had it in just mere minutes. I was excited.
Once I looked at the pattern, it seemed semi-hard. It called for an "advanced skill level". I like to sew, but I dont think I would consider myself "advanced". More of a dabbler.
I still decided to go for it. If I couldn't do it, I would have pushed myself and made something amusing at least.

Today I decided to cut the patterns out and do it! The file had only been on my computer for 3 days. That's a long time to be in pre-birth. I've had no real human babies, but even I know this!
I traced my pattern pieces onto the green felt. I was hoping for hot pink and purple and something lushiously girly..but without spending money and venturing to FabricLand, I used what I had. I am proud of my "thriftiness".

From start to end, Lola only took 7 hours of straight hand sewing. I have a sewing machine, but I like to do things the hard way. I wanted to see how long it would take, how it would turn out, and if I could do it.
This is just proof that if a pattern say "sewing machine", you dont really have to use one. Yes, it would be quicker and probably much neater...but it's only a suggestion. I even tried to add some details to the wings...but I think I needed darker thread or more overlapping.

There were some things I am not too happy about, but she is adorable.
The hands were kind of tricky, her ears are not straight -lets pretend she's listening for danger, her under-belly didn't have enough fabric (but that was an easy fix), I had no batting, so I just stuffed her wings, and no embroidery thread for designs on her belly or tail.
As much as I don't like the list above. I am still VERY proud. She is on my lap as I type, and is making me smile.
Bandit is on the other half of my lap.

Bandit and Pandora were both 'helping' me make her while I was tracing and cutting fabric.

While sewing I was watching LIFE on the Discovery channel. The boyfriend and his friend decided to play Halo Wars, so I mosied over to my computer and started to watch Pushing Daisies. Let me tell you, if you like dark humour and 30min TV series..check it out!

Anyway, speaking of Pushing Daisies, I am going to make more tea and get back to watching.

To see what I'm talking about, I highly suggest seeing these two sites...
Mariska's Fluffels
Shana Logic



The End...for today

No comments: