Pocket gryphon pattern

I've been trying to come up with a cute (and easy) gryphon stuffed animal for awhile. Over the years I have tried doing a couple of flat styles and some overly complex versions, but nothing stuck I was looking for something that could be easily made for largesse. So, I pulled up one of the most popular stuffed patterns out there for SCA use and decided to adapt it since it had already proved to be able to do what I wanted. Lady Katsumi's dragon pattern is amazing. Having seen them turn up in many a largesse basket and seeing how fast they were snapped up, it seemed the logical starting place. My gryphon didn't have much in common by the time I was done, but you can definitely see where it started from. Gryphons need forepaws. ears, and eagle wings to be recognizable, so the pattern pieces aren't as straightforward as the dragon, but it is still easy to assemble. A scanned copy of my handdrawn pattern in pdf is here

 Just to give you an idea of what the pieces look like

Cut out the pattern pieces and trace them onto your felt.

Cut out your pattern pieces

First you will want to do the decorative work. I like to blanket stitch things, so have done all the stitching on this in that, with button thread. You could use embroidery floss if you prefer, but I have tons of black button thread to hand, so that's what I'm using (my gryphon is orange and grey rather than gold and black for the same reason-- those are the materials I had on hand.)

Just stitch the interior details of the tail. You will stitch the outer curve when putting the two body pieces together.

I have trimmed my grey wings to be slightly smaller. You don't need to, but I found that it made the wings cup and curve when I stitched them and I liked the effect.

Once the decorative stuff is done, put your two body pieces together. I start stitching at the top of the tail because I find it easiest to stuff the finished gryphon from the back

when you reach the bottom, you will insert the tummy piece by catching the point between the two body pieces.

start stitching the tummy piece to one body piece, go around the bottom leg, up around the foreleg and to where the point of the tummy meets the bottom of the beak.

 
Continue stitching the tummy onto the second body piece. Continue to base of the tail and finish off.

Go back up to beak and stitch the body pieces together until you reach the top of the beak.

 Insert the top of the head by catching it with a stitch at the top of the beak. 

Stitch top of head to one body piece and continue stitching around the ear until you reach the back of the head. Continue onto other body piece and end at front point of head piece. Finish off.

Leaving the back of the head and the upper back open, stuff gryphons ears and wings. You can add a little or a lot, it it will make the personality of your monster. Stuff the feet and forepaws firmly.

Stitch the back of the head closed and continue stuffing your gryphon. I like to use scrap fabric, felt, and other oorts I have hanging around, but wool, cotton, or fiberfill all work. 

Stitch the rest of the back closed and lay you wings along the spine.

Backstitch your wings onto the back of the gryphon.

Ta-da! You're done.

50 seems like a nice round number

I still have loads to do on the mermaid bands for the camicia neck and cuffs, but they are coming along.  I have about fifty hours in to them at this point. I still have about a gryphon and a half to go with the backstich in the purple silk. Then there are four mermaids to do in the green silk. Then I've got to do some satin stitch and couching in gold. I have absolutely no idea how much more time it is going to take. I played with the gold on one cuff just a little in order to decide on whether to plan for gold, but I am nowhere near finished with what I want to put in. I'll probably put some gold on the centers of the mermaid tails and maybe some in their hair. The design looks a bit bare and I think it needs some bands on the edge, but there's not enough space on the linen strips, so those will need to be worked once they are attached.  It probably needs some lace as well.

Still don't have a dress, but I am making progress on my A&S 50 challenge

I took a day off to work on a quick little belt pouch gift/prize to give to the cook who made the best bacon treat at Solstice Court. I wasn't able to stay to see what happened, but I hope whomever won it likes it. I decided to arbitrarily add it to my list of favors and tokens I'm making for my SCA A&S 50 Challenge. I have until the year 2015 to make 50 of them. I'm also doing a few other challenges; 50 skills Praksedys would have developed and teaching 50 classes head the list.

I haven't been particularly scrupulous about making my favors and tokens entirely historically accurate, instead working with what the intended recipient would like and appreciate and the budget and circumstance as in the case of the 100 wool rat site tokens I made for our Mystery Event in March 2010. This time around, rather than doing wet felting, I needlefelted the pouch since I'm still working on improving my felting detail work without tidying the lines with some dry felting. Here's the little pouch before I sewed it together (I forgot to get pictures once it was complete-- its a problem with most of my projects.) When complete, it was lined in a gold colored broad cloth and stitched together with a blanket stitch in yellow cotton. There was enough overlap with the flap that I didn't do a fastening and chose to not put belt loops or anything on it since I wasn't sure how the recipient wanted to wear it.

The gryphon is loosely based on the crest of the Crosby Garret Helmet, a Roman Silistra-type cavalry helmet dated between 100-300 AD and found and sold in 2010

Mine is far too cute and not nearly striking enough to be more than inspired by the original. Too many years of felting children's toys, I suppose. It also suffers from lack of texture. I'd like to try sculpting something like the crest in the future, its such a beautiful image.

It is a restored piece, however. A more recent find at Vindolanda in Jan 2011 has a similar gryphon (stated to possibly be by the same craftsman) that has not been restored.

Living in the "Gryphon Lands" of Artemisia, more images of gryphons are always nice to have and I'm sure I'll come up with a reason to play with it again in the future.