This is my fine thing #2 the MerStede blanket.

Using Miyuki #6 rocaille glass seed beads for accent.

Cast on 3 stitches in the contrast color and knit in round inside out, increasing a stitch at the beginning and end of each round. The center stitch was knit (purled) in the main color and increased to 3 in the first round. Then continued in a pattern where the center 3 stitches are purled, the two adjacent stitches are knit, next one purled, next two knit, etc. Every third purls were in the MC. Whenever I started another purl in the MC, I would increase the previous MC part by a stitch up to 3 stitches max. Floats were kept on the RS as this was knit inside out (which makes it easier for the dragon scales later on).

Once I reached the desired size, broke yarn and knit another one, then joined the two. Flipped the whole thing WS out and continued to knit from the inside of the project.

Started decreasing the CC parts gradually. Dropped the MC stitches before transitioning to dragon scales and picked up by 2 and then 3 or 4 strands at a time with a large crochet hook to create large braids. If I do this again, I’ll decrease less and start the transition sooner. While the narrow part is stretchy enough for me to put my feet in the tail fin part, it doesn’t look that pretty stretched out. Or maybe I’ll just make the tail fin bigger, or do both.

Gradually increased scale size while knitting in round then started a split in the back, using i-cord edging and relied on increasing on these edges with YOs (effectively increasing the scale count by 1 every pattern repeat) instead of making the scales bigger.

Tail fin decrease: Whichever decrease that would keep the knit stitch from the WS on top.
For double decreases in the CC: p2tog, slip the next stitch kwise, put these two stitches back on the left needle, pass the second stitch over the first one
Slip one pwise with y front, SSP, psso

Used the Imoogi pattern for the dragon scales knit in round. Referred to the Storm Dragon Scarf pattern for knitting flat and the Azure Dragon pattern for the large scale variations. If you learn to knit the scales flat, you could do the whole project RS out, but the WS knitting in the round is much easier than the RS part. I did make fewer mistakes knitting on the RS as I could actually see what the stitches looked like.