The Cousin Series - Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Britney ~ #2

Cleo the Dragon (B, if his name is different let me know, I'll change it) came from a pattern that a wonderful woman at my local knitting shop worked up off the top of her head.

My niece and I were at the shop together and saw this little dragon in the glass case up front. I inquired whether there was a pattern I could purchase because Britney wanted me to make it. The woman at the counter did not know and tried to call the woman who originally made the ami. She left a message and told me the woman would contact me via phone or email. Great!!! We bartered over the price. $3.00? $4.00? We settled on $3.50, the going rate for a pdf pattern at the time.

I waited and waited. Nothin'!

FINALLY, an email arrived with the pattern attached. She stated in the email that she had created this dragon off the top of her head and hadn't written it down anywhere. She had looked at the finished dragon and tried to recall all the stitches she had used to make him. She hoped she'd got it right. I shook my head, (such kindness), I smiled and opened the file. As I read through the pattern, it seemed to work out in my mind just fine, but once I began working with yarn problems arose. The head turned into an oval. The snout was a strange, flattened shape and the tail? Too short and too small.

I thought about replying to the email and letting her know her pattern was flawed, but in the end decided it would be a great time to try my hand at "tweaking" this dragon on my own. I still appreciated her pattern because it created some interesting shapes for other projects, but it really didn't look like the dragon in the case. It was still worth the $3.50. She had worked so hard to do this for me and I didn't want to belittle that because I was a wuss at "tweaking".

I ended up "tweaking" the whole thing! Body and head became rounder, more ball-like. The feet and snout the same ball-like shape only smaller. The tail longer and bigger to match his increasingly larger bum and I added the ridge down the back which came from another ami pattern, an alligator. (Every dragon needs a ridge spike, right?)

So technically, this became my first pattern, but all the credit goes to the kind knitting woman at the shop. I couldn't have done it without her. It felt good to have created something new, but it felt even better to have had something with which to take that leap of creative energy.

Thanks Crafty Lady wherever you are! You made my Britney rather happy! You made me a more confident pattern-maker.

~S