My mother's advice ....

Some of my mother's advice has been very useful -  'Look up, speak nicely, and don't twiddle your fingers all the time';  'Curtsey while you`re thinking what to say, it saves time'; and 'Speak in French when you can't think of the English for a thing -- turn out your toes as you walk -- and remember who you are!'  Ok, that was the Red Queen, but she and my mother have a lot in common.  Anyway, a few weeks ago my mother was out and about generally spending my inheritance when she visited an English Heritage property and saw this little knitted dragon. She called me to tell me that I had to knit a dragon as it would 'go so nicely with the knitted gargoyles, dear'.  I like dragons and gryphons and gargoyles and have quite a few around the garden in shady corners ....

on the roof ...

on the back patio ...

guarding the gateway ...

thinking quietly ....

and pulling faces at visitors ....

Alan Dart, of course, does a dragon but it wasn't quite what I wanted. Then there is this quite wonderful creation and this splendid one.  But, as ever, nothing was exactly right so I sat down and came up with my own pattern ...

He still needs a little work - those legs are not as I want them.  He looks as though he's just landed too heavily following a tiring flight on a stomach full of peasant. I shall put him away for a few months and have go at improving him later.  Now I've decided that I need to knit an owl .....