The new year is going at quite a pace and s of this morning, there were just 10 working days left to the month of February, and while today was not as blissfully free of errands as yesterday, I still managed to make progress on “If pigs (and dogs and birds and bears and frogs and lions and turtles) could fly” afghan, and while the day began with just seven rows of this unearthed treasure completed, after much focused effort then there were ten.

I started by finishing the cluster hexagons I would need for row 10. When I was done with that, I finished work on the bird hexagon I needed to complete row 9.

Here is the result of yesterday’s and today’s efforts:

and here is how it looked with the first seven rows:

With days growing longer, I still had a bit of daylight left with which to work, and I decided to resume my efforts with the rather time consuming work of the animal faces that comprise forty of the 128 hexagons that are needed to make the project.

I started by stuffing and securing the three remaining turtle heads to the three remaining turtle bodies that I have in a one-gallon plastic bag for safe keeping:

Once the heads were firmly attached and no longer in danger of being separated from each other or the turtle bodies, I then finished work on the two remaining lion faces:

I love the lion faces, but they have not been easy for me to complete as I do not embroider features often enough to have developed any reliable skill with the process.

Some people like to find ways around the work of embroidering and weaving in of ends for their crochet, but I am firmly in the camp that believes that the pursuit of what I think of as “hurried” crochet devalues my beloved craft.

I don’t mind investing time and care into a project because the finished object is the visible embodiment of the commitment of time and self reflection that are an integral component any craft.