At long last...

I finished the Fluttershy amigurumi today. (Earthquake report at the bottom of the post, and dangit, yes, a yellow pegasus amigurumi is more important to me than an earthquake I barely felt)



I think this has to be one of the finest "critters" I have ever made. She looks very, very much like the cartoon Fluttershy only translated into 3-D (and, well, crochet.) I am completely overjoyed with how she turned out.

It took a lot of fiddling to get the face just right but I think I got very close.

I used the "Friends Forever Fawn" pattern in the Elisabeth Doherty amigurumi book (For some reason I can never remember the title of that book.) The modifications included doing the face differently (of course), adding a "cutie mark" (of course),
making a pair of wings, and doing a mane and tail rather than the crocheted tail of the deer.



You can see her wings here. They're extended, more like how they're shown in flight (Fluttershy is often shown with her wings demurely folded, where they look more like bird wings, but I wasn't quite as sure how to scrumble that up. I just kind of made these up as I went along:

Chain 9. Starting in second chain from hook, double crochet 8 (one in each chain). Chain 10, starting in second chain from hook, double crochet 8, chain 10, starting in second chain from hook, double crochet 8. That forms the "feathers." Then, you single crochet across the tops of the feathers (I think I wound up with 10) and then chain 1, turn, do another row. Then, for the next three rows, chain 1, turn, sc 2 together, sc to last 2 sts, sc 2 tog. Then do one row plain single crochet and finish off.

The hair and mane I did using a "latch hook" type of technique (essentially, you are making a lark's head knot with the mane or tail yarn around one of the "posts" formed by the crochet stitches). And you keep doing that, again and again, filling in the area, until the mane and tail are full enough. It's tedious but it is very effective and the hair is unlikely to fall out. (I learned this trick from the "Little Emo" pattern from Suncatcher Eyes).

And then, after applying her "cutie mark," (three pink felt butterflies; if I could have found tiny butterfly buttons that might have been faster), I got to play "Photo Finish*" with her.



(*For those who do not watch the show - Photo Finish is a photographer pony with a strong German accent. I think she's supposed to be a caricature of a famous photographer - maybe Anna Wintour? Anyway, in one of the episodes she goes nuts over Fluttershy's grace and modesty, and wants to make her into a model. Which, of course, Fluttershy hates, but she does, because she thinks Rarity wants her to, and Rarity is her friend...)

But it is a lot of fun to pose her. (That last shot is on my mantel; I took down the Halloween stuff and put up my autumn lights, though probably soon I will do Christmas decorating...)

Also, since she's a nature-girl pony, I had to take her outside and photograph her in a tree.



I also had to take the obligatory "Pegasisters?" shot in the mirror (sorry for the shakiness; I pulled my triceps muscle and my hands are shaky right now from it):



And the t-shirt I have on? The Fluttershy one I ordered a while back:



On second thought, I may actually wear this out of the house (instead of just as pajamas). It's a really pretty design.


*****

Oh, the earthquake? I was in bed but not quite asleep when I felt my bed shifting back and forth a bit (make all the ribald jokes you like; I was, as I always am, alone in bed). At first I thought it was either a hypnagogic hallucination (I used to very occasionally have them when I was younger, mainly of loud noises or shaking) or a myoclonic jerk (I sometimes get those, especially when I've overtaxed my muscles). But then I realized that wasn't it.

Then I realized it was an earthquake. (I felt two distinct periods of shaking with a second or two break between them). I probably wouldn't have thought "earthquake" if there hadn't been the earlier ones in the news (and, well, if it wasn't late at night - it felt to me more like a piece of heavy construction machinery going by on the street). But when I thought "Earthquake" I was immediately wide awake and slightly freaked out. (Things tend to look a lot worse when it is late at night for me.)

So I got up, switched on the local news (the Sherman/Denison station) They were on late only because a college football game ran late....they may have just taped the news and went home, because there was no report of a quake. (I heard about it on the radio this morning, so I knew for sure).

Nothing was damaged or knocked over in my house, and what I can see of the foundation it looks 100% fine. (My house is pier-and-beam, and from everything I've witnessed these 10 years I've been in it, it's VERY solidly built). Some of the people I know at church were talking about pictures being down or stuff knocked off shelves - but they all lived in slab-built houses (I asked), so I think pier and beam may be a "win" as far as small earthquakes are concerned. (I have a very precarious stack of books next to my bed and it didn't topple, nor did the equally precarious stack on one fo the bookshelves in my home office).

I do hope this is an end to earthquakes that we can feel for a while. And I sincerely hope this is not a sign that the New Madrid fault is flexing its muscles, because a large earthquake on that would be devastating - lots of loss of life in western Tennessee and southern Missouri, and lots and lots of damage, and probably things like stuff crossing the Mississippi being disrupted for a while. I have no idea if the faults in Oklahoma are in any way allied to the New Madrid...