Week 25 - Angus the Winter Magic hatchling

On a very sunny, clear, brilliant blue sky and cold winter Saturday we went to the annual Winter Magic solstice festival at Katoomba in the Blue Mountains just west of Sydney.

The first of these festivals we attended was in 2006 and we've gone each year since but I felt maybe this year was not as good as others, the variety wasn't there in the parade even though you could tell those taking part had put a lot of effort into it.

 

 This year also the crowd seemed thicker than ever, which I wouldn't have thought possible and we had trouble finding a good spot to take photos. 
Maybe that's part of the problem, I want to see everything through the camera lens, *IF* we go next year I might just leave the camera at home.

The traffic also didn't help, roadworks have been going on for the last goodness knows how many years on the highway leading into Katoomba, and the railways decided to choose this Saturday to do trackwork on the main line.  It took our family 3 hours travelling from the central coast to meet us up there.

Being the year of the dragon, the organisers used the dragon as their theme.  Shops had dragon art work in their windows, a big Asian dragon sat on top of the Carrington Hotel and lots of dragons in the parade.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we were starting to wind our way back down the hill I spotted one of the craft stalls I've been buying from for the past 6 years.

Rod and Eryn Barnett live in Victoria and travel to Sydney each year for the festival.
Rod sculpts fantasy characters which they then cast in ...something heavy... and Eryn colours them.
You can see their work at Wee Folk Garden Art

I have about six of their sculptures and this year I came home with Angus the hatchling.

Angus is resting after having just broken out of his tough dragon egg shell.

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile back at the parade:

lots of bands and drums:

 

 

lots of dancers:

 

lots of large furry creatures mauling small children:

lots of small furry creatures being very cute:

and lots of steampunk:

follow the picture links to flickr for more.

Week 24 - The Jubilee Dragon

Once again my very talented friend Alison left me speechless with her gift of the Jubilee Dragon.
Not that I'm a Royalist but my roots are in the UK - particularly the top bit known as Scotland (big smile)  and I will always have a soft spot for the red, white and blue..... colours I hope will never disappear from our Australian flag.

Alison, you are wonderful, how do I ever thank such a generous friend?

Week 23 - Cordell the Dragon

 

Back in February I produced Cordelia (known as Cordy).
Cordy had evolved from a piece of freeform cord weaving which had already been started.

I wondered how it would be to use this technique again, starting from scratch, with a dragon in mind.
I have to say it was a lot harder than improvising as I had with Cordy.

I wanted to make a long Asian style dragon.  He didn't hold his shape very well so I finished up covering a piece of aluminium sculpting wire and feeding it through the centre of his body.

I did have fun though, with the stitching and shaping and had to stop myself from getting too carried away with him.

...and the name?
I thought the male equivalent of Cordelia would have to be Cord.

On looking up the meaning of Cord, I found it was the abbreviation of Cordell, an old french word for a rope or cord maker ... how perfect was that!  

 

Week 22 - The Tuesday Dragon

I belong to a little group that meets each second Tuesday. One of my friends used to teach doll making to the group until she decided they knew enough to dispense with her teaching and were giving her too much cheek!  She named the group The Tuesday Travelling Torture the Teacher, we've cut all the T's down to TT for short.
So... friend was travelling and stayed with another dollmaker who showed her a clever way to make a dragon. As soon as she arrived home we had a TT dragon day.

These are the dragons they made and brought along for our model:

 

 

He has egg-shaped styrofoam balls for his body and head, with smaller round styrofoam balls cut in half and added to the top of his head and nose area for shaping, and two halves for his feet.
We inserted pliable aluminium sculpting wire for tail and neck.

Before attaching the small half ball to the top of his head, we inserted nails to protrude as horns, you can see this clearer in the small finished photos above.
Then wrapped wadding to pad the body and neck.

 

Then we wrapped the whole dragon in strips of T-shirt fabric. This wasn't easy, the fabric I used was too thick and hard to drape. It needs some experimenting. I finished by unwrapping him when I got home and doing it all again.

We were then supposed to paint the whole body with a watered solution of PVA glue to stiffen this layer. Not many of us got to this stage, and those who did found their dragon was taking too long to dry so couldn't go any further that day.

When our dragons were dried and hardened, we wrapped them again in a very stretchy open fabric which was bought from the car supplies shop, it's sold as hand wipes. The nice thing about this fabric is when it is cut into strips for wrapping, each side of the strip curls over and forms a ridge.
Once again it wasn't easy to wrap, when finished it was also painted with the fabric stiffener solution.
I wasn't happy with the nail horns which by now had been lost amongst the wrapping, so I stuck a thin straw onto each nail to lengthen it.
..and realised that once again I'd forgotten the wings!  maybe I'll add them later, maybe not.

 

Week 21 - Ali's glass dragon

My friend Alison makes glass flamework beads.

I started learning glass beadmaking about the same time as Ali.
After burning a hole in the kitchen table and producing a collection of blobby little beads, my remaining glass still sits as pristine glass rods, whilst the talented Ali has risen to amazing heights with her glass making.

She makes wonderful beads and I was quite stunned and over the moon when she gave me her first glass dragon.
I've had it for a couple of months now attempting to take photos that would do it justice, glass is so hard to photograph.

I hope you enjoy seeing the work of a lovely lady and good friend.

Week 20 - Mikey, the Michaelmas Dragon

Doing a little dragon surfing I came across a blogger named Angela who keeps the blog Rhythm of the Home where she kindly gives a free pattern for a Michaelmas Dragon.

Now, my religious inclinations being what they are, I had no idea what Michaelmas was or why it required a dragon.

Angela gives a little background on her page indicating that in medieval times Michaelmas celebrated the turning of the seasons especially harvest time in September. (autumn in the north which makes it just right for the present time in the southern hemisphere)
mmm. OK ....that sounds good.....then I did a little further digging and found that it didn't take long for "the other lot" to cotton on and St. Michael the Archangel got into the act with his earthly representative St. George... and we all know what St. George was famous for!

Nasty piece of work, that George..... I've no sympathy for any dragonslayers.



I created some fabric with my needlefelt machine, layering sheer pieces and wool scraps onto a  commercial felt background.
It proved not to be the best back to use as the needles chewed into the fabric and I wasn't able to sew a good seam without tearing it.
I backed the fabric with an iron on interfacing to give some stability then cut out the pattern.



I joined the pieces by hand with a blanket stitch.







AAARGH - when I went back to get the link to Angela's blog, I suddenly realised I'd forgotten to give him wings!! 

I'll have to add them later or Mikey will have no way of escaping from nasty George.