Oriental / AsianA Chinese dragon coiled inside a medallion, jaws open, mane streaming and its tail trailing off among scrolls of fire. It is drawn like a paper cut: the yellow is not only the background, it also runs inside the red, and it is what draws the scales, the whiskers and the flames. It is 206 x 206 stitches and two threads, about 37 by 37 centimetres on 14-count.
Of its nearly thirty-four thousand stitches, twenty thousand are yellow: the background is stitched, which is why a two-colour piece takes this long. On yellow or cream fabric you can work only the red and save six stitches in every ten, though the circle then loses its edge. And it is an exact pair for the Fenghuang in this same family: same size, same two threads, same style — dragon and phoenix have always gone together.
Classic Chinese dragon
This pattern is free: open it, change it however you like and publish your version in the gallery, under your name.
Files open with the Puntotek app.
The numbers
Size by fabric count
| Count | Stitches/cm | The design | In inches | Fabric to buy * |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 ct | 4.3 | 47.6 x 47.6 cm | 18.7 x 18.7 in | 64 x 64 cm |
| 14 ct | 5.5 | 37.4 x 37.4 cm | 14.7 x 14.7 in | 53 x 53 cm |
| 16 ct | 6.3 | 32.7 x 32.7 cm | 12.9 x 12.9 in | 49 x 49 cm |
| 18 ct | 7.1 | 29.1 x 29.1 cm | 11.4 x 11.4 in | 45 x 45 cm |
| 20 ct | 7.9 | 26.2 x 26.2 cm | 10.3 x 10.3 in | 42 x 42 cm |
| 22 ct | 8.7 | 23.8 x 23.8 cm | 9.4 x 9.4 in | 40 x 40 cm |
* The fabric to buy allows 8 cm on each side for the hoop and the frame. The highlighted row is 14-count, the most common: the pattern has the same number of stitches on every fabric, what changes is how big each one is.
Suggested fabric: white.
The threads
| Thread | Stitches | Of the total | Skeins * |
|---|---|---|---|
| DMC 16 | 20,344 | 59.8 % | 12 |
| DMC 666 | 13,700 | 40.2 % | 9 |
| 2 threads | 34,044 | 100 % | 21 skeins |
* The skeins are a guide: they assume about 1,700 stitches per skein with two strands on 14-count, rounded up. Finer thread goes further, doubled thread goes less far.
What this one asks of you
All 34,044 stitches are full cross stitch: no half stitches and no backstitch to follow.
It has 450 lone stitches, 1.3 % of the total, and 0 of those have no neighbour of their color at all. The more there are, the more the needle jumps.
