Shuǐ Lóng

“Presenting our new design, Shuǐ Lóng (Water Dragon) the divine mythical being possessing wisdom, protection and power. The dragon’s power is intimately linked with the natural world, the symbol and source of this being the pearls held in its claws. We have first woven it in the Caprica and Ember colourways as we wanted to take the opportunity with the red warp reweaving. However as we didn’t want to go into red overload, and also considering the season, we have only made a few in these colours. Shuǐ Lóng will be available in the next collection in some other colours and blends.”

The Tibetan Water Dragon – Shui Long was among the first patterns released by Oscha. The design has been especially popular with parents whose children were born in the Chinese Year of the Dragon (February 2012 – February 2013) but it has attracted other fans as well. It’s not a pattern for everybody and thus has a relatively small (but dedicated) fanbase.

There was an early teaser for the pattern hidden in the comments on Facebook on January 17, 2012: “Funnily enough (…) we have been looking at creating an Asian-style dragon, still very early stages with that design though.” Followed by another comment in the same thread: “Hhmmm, good point that it is the year of the Dragon! I actually quite like the scary dragons, but I guess they might need to be tamed a little considering the purpose ” to which someone commented “If you want to be really colour and element specific, this year’s Dragon is a Black Water Dragon.”

Dragons were requested in a February thread in the comments on a post asking “If you could pick 3 Oscha wraps, real or imagined, for in-stock wraps, what would you choose?“.

A short poem was posted as a teaser on 13 April 2012:
Vast and majestic,
I am every hue of the rainbow
I may eat you, I may heat you,
I hide within your stories.

Shui Long Ember was the first SL pattern introduced/teased on Facebook on 21 April 2012. The official introduction followed on 22 April 2012:
“Presenting our new design, shuǐ Lóng (Water Dragon) the divine mythical being possessing wisdom, protection and power. The dragon’s power is intimately linked with the natural world, the symbol and source of this being the pearls held in its claws. We have first woven it in the Caprica and Ember colourways as we wanted to take the opportunity with the red warp reweaving. However as we didn’t want to go into red overload, and also considering the season, we have only made a few in these colours. Shuǐ Lóng will be available in the next collection in some other colours and blends.”
“They’ll be listed next week sometime. The red is the same on both but possibly darkened slightly by the black thread on Ember, not a huge amount in it so far as the red goes, overall look is darker on Ember though. The linen is the same as in Aiko but its the ecru cotton that makes it so fluffy! Ring slings to come in both colours as well.“