It will be St David's Day on 1 March, the patron saint of Wales. Images of daffodils, leeks and of course the red dragon automatically come to mind when you think of what is a great country.
North Wales has majestic mountains and peaks in Snowdonia whilst the South has sandy beaches at the Gower Peninsula. I have been fortunate enough to have been to Snowdonia a couple of times. The first may not be considered fortunate as I ran the Snowdonia Marathon in 2007, all 26.2 miles of it up very steep hills and down and then back up again all with a touch of rain and wind. It was one of my slowest ones but it was fantastic. I got the usual t-shirt and goodie bag you get from these feats of physical endurance but also a slate coaster made from slate that is mined in Llanberis where the Marathon starts and finishes. It is the one thing I have had from my running days that isn't in a box somewhere, I am very proud to have finished. My second visit was for our mini-moon after by husband and I got married. Pregnant with our daughter we decided to save our foreign honeymoon to the year after and take her with us. We did one of those bargain £10 holidays in a holiday park not far from Snowdonia. This time we caught the railway train up to the top and back down. It is a stunning country.
So, why am I writing about Wales? Well I've designed a new amigurumi to celebrate St David's Day. It was going to be another Valentine Pig with some suitable Welsh accompaniments but then I remembered I had designed a dinosaur. In my thinking a dinosaur is not that many steps away from a dragon. So with some re-hashing and added wings and ears I present Wyn the Dragon.
He stands 3 inches tall and just over 3 inches from nose to tail. He is holding a dinky daffodil. If you'd like to make one the pattern is for sale here: https://www.ravelry.com/projects/BluebirdAndDaisy/wyn-the-dragon
or if you'd like to order one ready made, pop over to my Etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/BluebirdandDaisy
If you'd just like the instructions for the daffodil to join any of your creations or perhaps for an embellishment on a card here they are:
I've used double knitting yarn (Stylecraft Special DK in Dandelion) and a 2.5mm hook
ch2, then in the first ch which will be the centre, *(ch2, dc, ch2) slst back into the centre* repeat four more times so you have five petals
Tuning the flower so the front is facing you bring the yarn up between two petals, *sc between the petals and the centre, ch1* repeat all the way around so you are adding a surface stitch, slst into where you started and tidy your ends to behind the flower.
Now when I had done this there was a little pig sitting next to me, so I whizzed up another daffodil and gave it to him. This is Jones the Pig. He is the original pig design (Valentine the Pig available on Ravelry: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/valentine-the-pig) with the above daffodil added.