Dragonscale Dice Bag for Mika

This is the Dragonscale Dice Bag by Jessie Alameda, a free pattern. It's going to be a belated birthday gift for Mika. I bought 200 iridescent black polycarbonate dragonscales for this project from Michelle's SilverGriffonSkies shop on Etsy. Her scales are so beautiful, durable, and lightweight - they are perfect for this dice bag.

These next two photos are of Mika's two favorite sets of polyhedral dice. The first has holographic lettering, and the second has a geode appearance in the right light. If I do say so myself, these dice are going to look AMAZING with this bag! 😍

Mika's dice with iridescent lettering

Mika's geode dice

My usual supplier for dragonscales is The Ring Lord, but they mainly deal in aluminum/metal scales, and for this dice bag, I wanted something a bit lighter, and I also wanted them to be iridescent. The Ring Lord's scales are wonderful, but I don't think they offer iridescent, so that's why I gave my business to a different vendor this time.

This bag is 52 stitches around, so each scale row required 26 scales. I calculated that I could get a maximum number of 8 scale rows from the 200 scales if I worked 5 rounds of 26 scales and then decreased the bag to be 46 stitches around for 3 more scale rows with 23 scales each. That would have left me with 1 unused scale. But I decided that the bag was already tall enough after working 7 scale rows.

This is the first dice bag that I've actually lined with a sewn-in lining. Even though I'm pretty experienced at sewing, it was still a bit scary to do something new like this. But I'm very pleased with how well it turned out, and I think the finished bag is gorgeous.

With grommet added and lining pinned in place

I bought the dark purple two-tone dress taffeta fabric at Amazon. I think it complements the colors of the dragonscales perfectly. I also bought the black cord and the gunmetal gray cord stopper at Amazon. The yarn is fingering weight Estak Royal Cotton. I used a 3.75 mm crochet hook.

Before adding lining

As you can see in my "grommets test" photo below, I had to experiment with a few different sizes and colors before I figured out which one would look best on this bag. 

Grommets test

 

Dice bag for LadyU

This is the first thread project I've attempted (other than some earrings many years ago). I couldn't find my thread-size hooks (except for a 1mm hook that would be too small) when I wanted to start working on this (I really need to take some time to get my craft supplies organized!!) so I used the smallest hook from my standard Clover ergonomic set — 2.75mm — which turned out fine for my needs. I tend to crochet tightly anyway and so I'm used to having to go up in hook size for most patterns. Gauge really isn't an issue for this project since it's a bag. This is made with Aunt Lydia's Classic Crochet Thread in size 10, color black. The green scales are 0.35-inch anodized aluminum tags from TheRingLord.com.

Besides using a different hook size I deviated from the written pattern in a few other (minor) ways. First I made a double-thick base as described in Jessie Alameda's Dragonscale Dice Bag tutorial. Second I didn't string all the scales onto the thread before starting to work; I crocheted them in place one by one by using my 1mm hook to pull the thread through the opening of each scale when working the scale SC. Third I worked only four rows of DC above the scales before working the row of loops for the drawstring; I felt like the bag was tall enough at that point. Fourth I worked two rows of SC above the drawstring loops.

My biggest challenge for finishing this was figuring out which kind of cord to use as the drawstring. I didn't want to use thread chains (too bumpy to operate smoothly) ... I tried to knit some i-cord using the thread and 2.25mm needles, but that was taking forever and really hurting my hands ... I thought about making some monk's cord using the thread (there are several tutorials for this on YouTube; I've done it before and it isn't hard to do) but I just wasn't feeling it ... so then I went to Walmart to see if they had anything suitable there in the crafts section, but the only black cording they had was cotton and waaay too thick at 3/16-inch. I finally found some 2mm black satin cording at Amazon.

Attempt at i-cord 2.25mm needles

Bag with 3/16-inch cord as drawstring (ugh)

I cut two 20-inch pieces of cord and wove them through the loops at the top of the bag so that the ends came out on opposite sides for cinching the top closed. I tied an overhand knot on each pair of ends at a position to allow the bag to be fully open. Then I strung one bead on each tail, knotting the cord on each side of each bead to hold it in place.

 

I love how this turned out and hope LadyU feels the same way when she receives it. 😊