Crochet Update: Meet Henrietta the Dragon

I've been diligently working on my Giraffe's legs, but found myself yet again being a little bored. As a split second decision, I decided to make up this little lady:

I call her Henrietta and she's a super cute dragon :) I used the Petrie the Dragon pattern from Monster's Toy Box (the same that designed the Giddy-Up Horse pattern). I'm seriously in love with the head shape of these designs - they're just so cute!

Here's the side view. The orange yarn is a bit of a mistake actually. I ordered two different orange yarns online thinking that one of them would be a good foxy color for making my fox. The both turned out to be much more orange and much less red than my laptop screen made me believe. The other orange worked out fine for the fox project, but I ended up with this crazy bright, almost neon orange color. It isn't the right kind of color to make a normal animal out of. I figured the only thing it would work for would be a monster, but when I decided on this pattern I knew the orange would just fit the bill. The orange is Vanna's Choice in Radiant Orange (very appropriately named) and the yellow is Red Heart With Love in Daffodil.

One thing I will say is that this pattern has a dang lot of pieces. It took quite a while just in assembling. I wouldn't change a thing though because I love how she turned out. Incidentally, I now have a new plan to use this pattern to make a completely different animal with its pieces. I'm really excited about it - I can't wait to show Monster's Toy Box the surprise! I just have a certain yarn color in mind that I need to pick up.

During the final assembly, I went to grab my usual animal eyes from my stash only to find I was all out of 15 mm size. Lucky for me this pattern (as well as all other Monster's Toy Box patterns) included instructions to make these cute eyes using felt. These eyes are one of MTB's signature looks and I hadn't tried making them yet. To be honest, they take quite a bit of work to make - especially considering how I seem to have missed the French knot making gene. I got it eventually and I really do love the eyes. 

Another thing I love are the toe nails! Yet again, my embroidery skills were not quite up to scratch, but in the end they came out cute. One thing I did differently than the pattern states is that I embroidered the toe nails and the nostrils before stuffing the pieces so that I could hide the knots inside. Also, since my horse came out so top heavy I decided to put poly pellets in the feet of Henrietta since she has a similar body shape. It worked like a charm!

I'm really happy with how cute this little dragon turned out! It's such a cute pattern and you can really be imaginative with your color choices. I'm definitely happy I grabbed this pattern :)