Dijanne Cevaal Figure 3: First Dragon

I have found the Dijanne Cevaal panels so addictive I moved straight on from the King to the dragon - and didn't pause to take photos until I was quite advanced. I began with those scales on the back of the neck - worked in some of the SA Embroiderers' Guild over-dyed stranded thread.

I was really excited by the red-gold thread from the Guild's last batch and bought rather a lot of it, using a red-dominant with an open chain stitch for the neck and a gold-dominant in Bokhara stitch for the wings.        
                                                         










The chest uses a lighter one in a combination of stem and buttonhole stitch.

Some of the Madiera sparkly synthetic from the King's beard came in handy for the horn, teeth and claws.

I separated the sections of the wings with a couched gold laying thread and used a black/gold Au Papillon metallic on the legs and feet.

The shape of the two plants cried out, I thought, for needle-lace. I haven't worked this in a metallic before but found it worked up really well in green Kreinik metallic with stems in a slightly heavier DMC Diamante.

In the  two earlier panels I worked I largely ignored the screen printed markings on the background. With this one, I decided to work the markings in a variety of blues to give an impression of sky. I used a variety of threads, solid and variegated, silk, cotton and metallic. The tail was worked in red - with solid outline and seed stitch fill.

I liked the effect of the seed stitch so much I decided to use it for the background in place of running stitch.

I am pleased with the effect. I used one or two strands of stranded cotton, then added in some more between these using a metallic - mostly Madiera No 40.

The result is very rich and dense. 

Now to turn this into another cushion!