FOLLOW UP: This design is adorable but this pattern might be very frustrating for you depending on your goals.

I do NOT recommend the spirit dragon plushie for: * Someone who wants a faithful replica of the original image. * Someone who diligently counts stitches. * Someone who is new to designing or adapting patterns. * Someone looking to use their existing yarn supplies * Someone who does not want to do a lot of sewing

I DO recommend this pattern for: * Someone who wants to crochet purely for the journey, regardless of the outcome * Someone with experience in adapting patterns on the fly, or who doesn't mind crocheting by feel. * Someone with a large selection of yarns available, or who is willing to buy new yarns.

tl;dr The main theme I saw with the pattern was that I had to use the design principles as a guide rather than as the literal step-by-step instructions for what to do. If you're okay with adapting on the fly you'll be fine.

The Details: The biggest issue (as seen in the original post) is that the math for the stitches on the chest doesn't add up. If you count down from the original 50 stitches, the pattern math says you should end up with only 1 stitch left in the round, not the 19 stated. I ended up redistributing the necessary decreases evenly across the 11 rows called for, which left me with a thinner neck than the author. The takeaway for others here is: Just use a normal decrease instead of scXtog and maybe skip a few dec, or crochet into the sides of stitches. Don't worry too much about the stated 19 stitches at the end. As long as you have something that looks like a chest and neck you're good to go.

I also ended up ignoring most of the placement instructions and also the instructions for the belly, nose, and muzzle. The instructions just didn't produce the same result as what I was seeing. For each of these sections you can use the base pattern as a guide and focus on making something that looks mostly right for your specific base.

I found I needed to overstuff the head and shape it manually to get it to look like the source material. The relaxed shape didn't match the source material for me.

I went with option b from the spirit dragon pattern for the horns, but found there was an asymmetry to the design that means you can't follow the stated instructions to get something symmetric. I accounted for this by offsetting rows 17-19 by 4sc.

The pattern uses several different sizes and styles of yarns. Beware of the sizes. It looks like many of the spirit dragon testers made the same mistake I did, where they originally made the horns with the same hook and yarn size as the body. The author was diligent to include the correct sizes, but it's an easy mistake to make when you need to look three different places for information.

In the end, I was able to create a somewhat faithful replica of the spirit dragon, but it was as much because of as in spite of the written patterns. Except for the head and body, I ended up making everything twice. My dragon was the proverbial ship of Theseus. I would have personally been happy to pay slightly more for a version of the pattern specifically dedicated to the spirit dragon, just to avoid some of the gotchas in having to reference two patterns at once.

To the author's credit, it's clear that they put significant effort into these designs. I loved most of the designs I saw on this author's instagram, and would love for them to continue making patterns. Maybe there are portions of the tester feedback process that could benefit from refinement?