Dragon in a Castle Sleeping Bag

I've been getting DH to purchase these Laura Suttcliffe patterns as gifts for me for years. I love them because they are quick to make and they always have fun themes. This one fit perfectly with my castle Christmas theme. You can purchase the pattern here. This is not a sponsored post I just believe strongly in promoting designers that you like because it keeps them in the business of creating more designs you will enjoy making. That being said if she ever wishes to send me a free pattern I will disclose that and be thrilled.

The castle itself worked up very quickly and assembled easily. The directions were clear. My biggest challenge has been finding color shades lately. I've been using this shade of blue frequently and my supply is about gone. Replacing it has proven to be more challenging since I've been shopping only online but I will find it eventaully. I chose to use buttons instead of embrodering the flowers. My embrodiery skills on yarn are not great. I find it hard to get the embrodiery to settle in the pattern I want the same way you can when working on linen types of material that you do when doing traditional embrodiery.

One of the things I liked about the design of the dragon is the tail braces the body of the dragon making it stand up more easily. I have a picture down the bottom that doesn't demonstrate this as well as it should becuase the chair is uneven. However, the dragon stands quite nicely and the tail folds to the side when you put him in the sleeping bag. The design works quite well.

I used Omega Sinfonia for the details on the castle as I found the worsted weight yarn was too heavy to work. I also ended up using size 10 thread for the dragon's eyes. As I mentioned before I really don't enjoy embordiery on yarn. I've emborderied table cloths, bookmarks and other projects over the years so I have some experience but I just find it really challenging working on a yarn surface. If I made this again I'd try to find a way to get the saftey eyes in or use googly eyes and sew those on. The embrodiered eyes were just not that fun to make.

I'm pleased with the outcome of this project. Even more pleased to have another Christmas present finished with the mailing deadline looming.