Wednesday, November 12, 2014

The dragon of excess rises

I have another excess thread project to share today. Done in size 10, I started with this critter's legs and went on from there.

Basking her wings in the sunlight, Dragonthing fears nothing.

Standing about four inches tall at her snout, this dragon... thing has a wingspan of seven inches from wingtip to wingtip.

Despite having six horns and a keen sense of smell, Dragonthing secretly wishes she had eyes.

After making the legs, I began the body at the tail and worked my way up to the neck. Then I made the head and attached it. After that I made the framework for the wings, and lastly the membrane.

Dragonthing loves all the colors in her wings, and rides through the air like a kite.

I tried two different patterns for attaching the split ring wing membrane to the wing frame. With the wing on the left, I connected the split rings until reaching the elbow joint, then doubled back and forth until reaching the base of the frame, and then took each row in a straight line.
With the wing on the right, I took the split rings to the base of the frame on the first row, and had straight rows through the entire work.
Both methods work, though the first method is more time consuming.

Shifting her wings, Dragonthing hears the howling wind.

From the tip of the wing membrane to her head, Dragonthing is about eight inches long.
After I finished tatting the wing membrane, I attached it along her body by sewing. That way, I was able to position it exactly as I wanted.

I enjoy making excess thread projects. They are an opportunity to tat whatever I might feel inclined to make, while using up thread from other projects in a way that I don't need to worry as much about hiding the ends or running out of thread in the middle of the project ... okay, I still have to hide the ends in split rings when changing colors, but split rings are probably my favorite tatting technique. So they don't count as much.

Well, I hope you liked Dragonthing, the vaguely dragon-like creature made from excess thread.

Good luck with your own projects!

4 comments:

  1. Goodnes gracious me!
    Did you tat the dragon's body with the bauble techinque? I mean the way the Houtz brothers tat mice?
    yeah,, split rings are super, they go in all directions and cleverly bend around corners!

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    1. Well, after looking up the bauble technique, I can answer no to having used it for the dragon's body.
      I began with a small ring at the tip of the tail, then just tatted rounds of chains and joined them to get the shape I wanted.

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