Here, finally, be dragons

I can't recall at what point I decided that Porthos' Christmas present this year was going to be a cuddly dragon, but it was quite early - I definitely knew before I went to the concert at the beginning of October, because I remember telling his mother that was what I was making him. I should explain that Porthos just loves cuddlies. He has a house full of them, including quite the nicest polar bear I've ever seen. But one thing he hasn't had up to now is a dragon... so I decided to put that right for him.

It also had to be his favourite colour; well, you've seen the frock coat, so you already know Porthos' favourite colour is a reddish purple. It took me a bit of thought to decide what to use for the contrast, but in the end I went for the silver. Now, technically, you're supposed to use minky fleece for this pattern; but I happen to know that Porthos really loves velour, and besides they had it in a huge range of colours.

There was just one teeny little problem. It was stretch velour. And obviously if you use a stretch fabric for anything stuffed, it's going to go out of true. Well, no problem. I have calico, because of course I do. I use it for toiles. All I needed to do was back all the pieces with calico...

...oh, wait. There are 29 of them?

Better get on with it, in that case!

Of course, I didn't absolutely have to use 29 pieces. As you can see from the pattern envelope, there is a version with no wings or spikes, and then there's also a version with furry bits. I'm not convinced about furry bits on a dragon, and, honestly, if it doesn't have wings or spikes, then in my book it's not a dragon, it's the Loch Ness Monster. And while there's definitely a place for the Loch Ness Monster, it was not what I wanted to make for Porthos. So 29 pieces it was.

These spikes were ridiculously fiddly. You pinned the sheet of spike pieces to the fabric and calico, then you tacked round each spike section. Then you cut them out in twos and stitched them together. It turned out to be much quicker and easier just to do this through the pattern paper, rather than trying to mark 6 mm seams on these little pieces; I was already by this point quite sure I was never going to use this pattern again, so it didn't matter if all the spike pieces were destroyed in use.

I made the horns next so that I didn't get the pieces mixed up and end up with two left or right horns (I had a whole bag full of dragonbits, and they were all numbered, but still). You sew up round the outside and then turn the right way out through a hole, as shown. That's where it joins on to the head. One of the advantages of using calico backing is you can just mark it up with a pen, so if you do end up having to take anything out you haven't erased your seam line. It's still there.

Next, I prepared all the other pieces as far as possible. The pattern doesn't tell you to put the eyes in till you've sewn up the head, but that's because they assume you're using a machine and they might get in the way of the foot. If you're doing it by hand, it is much easier to put the eyes in before you sew anything. (Also, note piece 7 in the background; that's an inner leg, the back one, I think. It has a small hole with a seam line round it. You put the legs on by first sewing the inner leg to the body round the hole, then turning it to the other side through the hole and sewing the outer leg on top. It's a useful method that I shall certainly remember if I want to design future soft toys.)

The instructions were unclear, so I sewed the horns on and then looked at the pattern envelope and thought "oh, they're supposed to lie more or less horizontal". But actually I prefer them vertical, so they stayed like that.

Here's the body. That's a lot of dots along the back; those mark where all the spikes are going to go. And if you've ever done anything like this yourself, I can be pretty certain you're thinking "wow, that must have been the dickens to turn the right way out." And you'd be right; it turns through the neck opening, and you've got both the legs and...

Ah, yes. The wings. This was where the lack of clarity in the instructions got serious. I put them on the wrong way round (I am not going to show you a photo of the relevant part of the pattern instructions because it fidgets me to look at it; but suffice it to say there was no indication at all of which side was the main fabric and which was the contrast, and all they showed you was the wings rolled up and pinned out of the way of the seam lines). When I realised, I spent a few minutes wondering if I could somehow wire them up so that they were raised above the dragon's back, in which case they'd look right; and then I told myself not to be an idiot, since it would be both quicker and easier just to take out that part of the seam, turn the wings round, and stitch it all back up again. So that was what I did. Incidentally, I don't know what you need to do if you have a sewing machine, but I found it a whole lot easier not to pin the wings while I was working on the body seams. I tried initially, but the pins kept coming out and getting into annoying places. As long as I pinned the seams themselves before I sewed them, there wasn't the slightest danger of the wings getting caught.

The legs weren't too bad, but I almost despaired of the wings ever going through that neck opening. It is not, after all, that big. But I am very patient and determined, and they did in the end. I should have used minky fleece!

I used to have a bit of a tendency to under-stuff things, so they'd be wobbly on their feet. So these days I consciously try to avoid that, knowing that I probably can't go to the opposite extreme and stuff a soft toy as if it were a lace pillow, because I don't have enough physical strength. I'm pleased with this, though. Little dragon stands up very nicely when you want it to (and, of course, if you don't, it has that curved underbelly so you can sit it on your shoulder or the arm of a chair).

Now all I have to do is put it in a suitable box, wrap it up in some nice festive paper and then some brown paper, and post it off to Porthos, which will most likely happen on Tuesday (we don't have a post office in this apology for a town, so I have to go into the next village, and Tuesday is when I can get a lift). And, while I'm at it, that sage green hat in the background is going to my ancient mother, who finally allowed herself to be persuaded to let me knit her something at the advanced age of 86 (never give up!).

If you're at all curious, d'Artagnan got a bilingual copy of Le Petit Prince because I couldn't quite get my head round the fact that he'd never encountered it in his extremely interesting and well-educated life, and Athos is getting a Discworld Emporium voucher because he's a complete blighter to buy for. I mean, if I made him a dragon, he would just blink at me.

Anyway. Excuse me while I go and look for that "suitable box"...