Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Petal: from Russia with love

It all started on Pinterest here and here. You can see more pics in here gallery here, but this is my absolute favourite.


Aren't they completely adorable? I love dragons, so I just had to track down a pattern to make my very own. And I landed on this!


See that? There's a pattern!, Downside - it's in Russian and my knowledge of Russian is absolutely zilch!

But I didn't let that stop me - the Russian translation was actually rather fun! (And how geeky is that? Well, problem solving is something I do a lot of at work.) I picked up a translation of Russian crochet terms from a couple of sites online (which I can't find any more), then I used an online Russian keyboard to type in various mysterious bits of text and copy them across to Google Translate to get an English version. Luckily, the original pattern's in a fairly standard layout and uses Arabic numbers so it wasn't too hard. Anyway, all I wanted was enough of a pattern to at least get a rough method to work on.

But I'm so delighted with how Petal's worked out!

I can see you!

Some of the translations were a bit odd - Alexander really wanted to see me put the 'handles' on (arms/hands). And I still haven't worked out what it means by 'One eyelet knit head 5 dc' - I think it's a nostril!

Or is this my best side?

I already have plans for more dragons and once I've fine tuned the pattern a bit (Petal has a slight problem keeping her balance!), I'll write it up for sharing!

Nasturtium

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To all those who've offered me positive words and encouragement over the last couple of weeks - Thank you so so much. It really is appreciated and I certainly don't feel quite so isolated and invisible for now.

Ideally, I would like to make you all a little Petal to send you, but speaking from experience, that would probably take me until the middle of next year and I'd never want to look at a dragon again - not sure how constructive that would be!

But I just want you to know that I really do appreciate every word.

Posing
Petal says thanks too!

15 comments:

Rebekah said...

Petal is so cute! Good job!

pinkundine said...

Aw, I love her, so cute! I'm impressed with your pattern translating, I think I would have been a little too put off to even consider trying to translate! But then, it is such an adorable dragon so I can see that the effort was definitely worth it!

Marie/Underground Crafter said...

Very cute. Google translate definitely has opened up so many more options for pattern translation.

Paula said...

I can't believe you dumped a Russian pattern into Google translate and came out with something that looks SO great. She's perfect! Excellent job.

Minding My Own Stitches said...

Very brave to take on a pattern written in Russian. I have enough problems following some of the DROPS patterns which are presumably in English ;)

Incredibly cute dragon!

barbara said...

I could squee it is so utterly precious and adorable!!

Paula said...

These are so adorable, love them!

Unknown said...

The dragons are adorable! Do you think you might share the translated pattern?

Julie said...

Aww she's adorable and looks right at home amongst your fuchsia bush.
well done on the translation!

Deborah/LavenderRoseRamblings said...

Oh, Lesley, I want to buy 3 of them for Christmas for my little grandgirls. Can you email me?
thebookishdame@aol.com
Thanks, they are tooooo adorable for words!!!
Deb/LavenderRoseRamblings

heather said...

This is SO adroable! Great work...especially given the translation craziness! :-)

Theresa said...

Awww~~~ Petal is sooooo cute!!!!! Her friends are so adorable, too~~

Tatkis said...

What a lovely dragon you've crocheted! Thank you for the link - and if I can help you next time with Russian instructions, just ask :)

Hugs,
Tatyana

Meari said...

Petal is adorable!

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