Recently, I finished a project I’ve been wanting to make for a long time. I tend to put off making some things for reasons I don’t even fully understand. I may really want to start the projects, but I just can’t muster up the time or motivation or whatever is needed to step over the line from “want to do it” into “doing it”. In these cases, I have found that the best way to jump this invisible hurdle is to make the project for someone else as a gift. Something about the layer of expectation and implied time limit kicks me into gear when nothing else does.
Such was the case for Toothless the dragon. Patterns sat languishing in my Pinterest board while I told myself I would definitely start them. One day. I was sharing with a fellow lover of How to Train Your Dragon how badly I wanted to make Toothless, and mentioned the mysterious effect that making a project as a gift has on my ability to actually create it. She replied (slightly jokingly) “You could make one for me!”, and here we are—many months past her birthday, when I had wanted to have it done—with a completed crochet project. It’s magic, I tell you.
The pattern I used is by tinyAlchemy and I found it on pdfcoffee. My only concern with this pattern is that I can’t confirm how legitimate its inclusion on pdfcoffee is. The pattern does not seem to exist on tinyAlchemy’s Etsy page (here), as they are taking a break, and I don’t know if it was originally free, or for sale. I also don’t know if perhaps the pdfcoffee pattern was uploaded by tinyAlchemy, or how to find out. If I do discover somehow that the pattern was meant to be paid for, I will happily buy it, as I am very happy with my little night fury and would love to support the creator of this pattern.
The pattern was very easy to follow through the crochet sections, and I thought it was thorough with a good number of process photos. I did have a few issues during assembly and I think that section could have used more extensive instructions and photos. For anyone considering checking out this pattern, these are my personal recommendations for the assembly:
I would follow the assembly order, except for the horns. I found it was easier to attach the horns after the head was sewn to the body because I struggled to decide placement while I was still unsure which part of the head would connect to the body.
The pattern specifies which rows to attach the legs to, which helps in placing them far enough apart from each other, but it doesn’t explain how high on the body to place them. I placed both front and back legs level on the body the first time and my dragon looked like this:
He looked wrong somehow, but I couldn’t quite figure out what the issue was. In the end I re-stuffed the head a bit, but what fixed it was adjusting the legs. I left the back legs alone, but shifted the front legs further down the body, tipping Toothless’s head upward. Once I had fixed the oddness, the reason he looked off became obvious. By shifting his tail down it made it look like it was heavy, visually creating the sense of weight. When his legs were level with each other his tail was up in the air and he looked like a salamander or axolotl to me. It was because his tail looked too light! It also ended up making his front legs look a little closer together, which helped with Toothless’s signature catlike appearance.
Finally, if you choose to sew on the horns after the head is attached to the body instead of before, make sure you do them before the wings. Otherwise the wings will be in the way of tying off loose ends.
All in all, I found this pattern to be really well written and I enjoyed following it. I appreciate the hard work that went into creating it, and hope tinyAlchemy starts their Etsy shop again soon with more great patterns. I can’t wait to give my tiny Toothless to my friend!
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