So first and foremost… I got the most amazing idea and pattern off of DeviantArt thanks to Aphid777. Check her out, her patterns are not tested and often leave a lot of wiggle room, but if you are ready for a challenge and an amazing result – she is the best! Small-ish Haku can be found HERE, her profile link is HERE. 

Spirited Away is one of my all time FAVOURITE movies. And Haku one of my favourite dragons. So when I came across this gem on my random look through the artist’s fiber art, well I knew I HAD TO make one of my own (with Ken’s amazing help).

First off my supplies… I used Caron Simply Soft brand yarn and stills from the movie to pick my colours. I used white, blue mint, blackberry and soft pink. 

For detail work Ken used roving wool from a variety pack we purchased off of Amazon. You really do not need much for this sort of detail work. The process he used is called felting. 

For the actual structure of the dragon we purchased 12 GA solid white insulated wire from Menards. We wanted to be sure the dragon could be shaped without snapping the wire and hold form. 

For whiskers and horns we used wrapped in DMC floss color matched from pictures and super glue for ends. (E6000 would work too, except we couldn’t find ours).

For stuffing I used the usual fluffy stuff you buy at Joann’s Polyfil.

I had Ken cut and double our body wire. We went longer than suggested so we could cut as needed. The length we used was around 62 inches… 31 inches when doubled over.

I did not place the wire in the body until I had crocheted a bit down the length, going around the wire once it was in the piece was one of the more annoying processes of the project.

I also varied my amount of stitches to meet the bottom center of the piece from what the artist did. Again this is all eye balling and personal preference. I found that once my head was formed putting a stitch marker on the top of the nose of Haku made it easier to eye ball my return to center.

The trick was to consistently add stuffing without over stuffing, but a long stick was quite helpful. 

Once you crocheted to the near end of the tail it was time to trim my end and cover it in electrical tape to avoid a sharp bit poking through. Then PATIENTLY decreasing until you tie off and finish.

The belly is an easy one piece. If I make this again I would consider making the entire structure longer (mostly for fun with posing) and that would change count. But her pattern was easy to read.

Ears are a quick process. Legs took more work. We used a single piece of wire threaded through the body to each leg for our assembly. And did not poke our wire through the side of the leg as indicated.

Feet were added after, easy enough. (and obviously legs and feet were AFTER mane, but you get the idea)

The mane and fluff at the end of the tail was hooked in like when you are hooking a rug. I made sure to face all my knots toward the front of the body and to keep them close to center. Eyeballing and what you like is key. Lengths do not matter, as once they are in you take a cat brush and brush them until they are fluffy and then trim. 

Before brushing

Ken felted in our details and BANG dragon! I am super pleased with the side view though we feel we need to work on our eyes to better get the front view. Though front on loses the body so… not the view I want anyway! 

And there you have it…. HAKU! Into the local county fair he went. (Like the next day after completion. Nothing like JUST meeting a deadline). End result – first place in crochet, storybook characters! Not bad! 

Well, that snuck up on me! Quite the number! And here I am, starting the next thousand posts with crafting and creativity. Appropriate, no?

This week is a rainbow week (well, week plus a few days), but with a difference. I decided, being the multi tasker I am, to have my secondary activity vary along with my colour changes. So I started with Monday and that beautiful bright red. What better to pair with that then catching up on some excellent murder mysteries in ANIME form. I had two full mysteries to enjoy with one being two double length episodes from the new year. Case Closed is one of my favourites (though I am still confused as to the reasoning behind the de-aging of the main character’s body as a long term plot twist). It is on its 20th year! And while I have only watched what has been posted on Crunchyroll (seriously worth the monthly subscription for an anime addict like me) I would love to get my hands on the beginning of this series… or the manga it was based on (in English of course) and dig in!

Tuesday brought on orange, with it being the focal colour of this piece I figured I would sit back and enjoy some music while I did my three rows. Spotify is an app I newly loaded to the iPad when I wanted to listen to music while I read in the tub. I use the free portion of the app and go with Evening Chill. Suitably relaxing which seemed to go well with the brightness of the orange.

For yellow I paired it up with a newer family favourite movie – Home, and my very best cuddly movie watcher Miss Echo. We can’t help but smile our way through this movie. Echo has her favourite parts when she simply cannot help but narrate along. Sitting together on the bed while I added this bright colour was so lovely.

Green is, of course, a special colour. In honour of the Kelly our Kelly green represents I went with a hefty dose of nostalgia with a continuation of my Murder She Wrote marathon. Something familiar and comforting with a bit of excitement and humour. Perfect…

And then… we got hit with the plague! For goodness sake, we homeschool so are not constantly surrounded by kids, but apparently the combination of basically living at the YMCA on three different occasions a week and Sunday School was enough to put us over. And I refuse to work on such a special project when I am under the weather… that is when mistakes are made! So instead I puttered… recuperated and lost a prep week for schooling. Oh, well! So I figure, it has been too long between posts and I need to share some colour now that our snow seems to be FINALLY melting… so I am going to post this as it is. Red through Green!

I promise a colourful rest of March. I need to kick it up a notch as I certainly do not want to be working away on this way into June if I plan to make the fair! I hope enjoyed my 2001 post! In the meantime here are some of the completions from the past couple weeks! 

A no roll flower I tested out! So awesome, Sick Lil Monkeys!

Awesome how the back works out.

Double Ruffle Blanket!

Baby booties from a book sent by a friend

Cupcake blanket!!! My first new classroom only completion!

I am knee deep in reorganization chaos or I would have blogged this yesterday. As it is I have borrowed the kids’ new laptop for the evening just to type this up. Mine is behind a wall of furniture in what used to be our school area. Oh well… progress on my rainbow ripple blanket project has been made!

This past week I have grabbed my crafting moments whenever I could and thrown in other projects to boot! I have placed this large project as a permanent fixture next to our bed. I love that the box the yarn was originally mailed in works perfectly as a yarn holder while I work. This may become less useful as the skeins grow smaller. We shall see!

I admit it, I have paired various projects and activities with working my rainbow… books, anime (binge watched an entire series… I admit it), even other projects. All from the comfort of my CLEAN and TIDY room. Which has become as crucial to my relaxation as the project itself. 

My Regency Romance collection is free from the boxes!

Spooooky!

This coming week will still be balancing cleaning, teaching and more BUT I plan to take some measurements and share some links to some of my smaller in between projects so do check back!