embroidery pattern of the week
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no 8: Chinese protection dragon

This time some special attention to the design "protection dragon". The dragon I found on pottery from the Ming dynasty period. After drawing a simplification of the motif, I took a photo of the drawing and with the help of the drawing software Coreldraw I made the contours of the drawing "countable". The exiting thing in the process is "keeping the expression".
The border on the outside is inspired by plane decorations you can find, for instance, on wooden doors in China.

execution of the design of the week

The total design, with the border, measures 146x236 cross stitches. I have embroidered it on linen cloth with 10 threads per centimeter and the stitches are made over two treads. The background in cross stitch is made with two strands of DMC six-stranded embroidery floss and the contours of the dragon ( in black) with three strands. Also the small motifs in the border which are not in cross stitch are made with three strands. For some useful embroidery directions look here, but read all the time over two threads instead as over 3 threads.

the design

Following the link below you will find the working drawings. Printed on A4 paper you will have excellent drawings. If you want to embroider a mirrored dragon then mirror the picture in one of your programs you used for looking at pictures and photographs.

The swing-doors in our entrance hall, with at the right and left two protection dragons. The embroideries are about 40 centimeters high.