FO: Gerald the Dancing Giraffe

I may have cut it slightly close with my good friend Gerald.  Thursday night I worked furiously to finish all the fiddly little items, like the 11(!) spots, the ears, and the embroidery.  After taking my cousin out climbing during the day for the first time (more on that later) on Friday, I stopped at Yarn Harbor to get more orange yarn for Gerald's pom-pom mane since I ran out of the orange I was using.  There was a moment of panic when I realized that YH didn't have the correct color in stock in Cascade 220, so I took a gamble with the Cascade 220 Paints in an Orange Mix.  Then I went home, put on a bunch of bad Netflix documentaries (Inside North Korea, anyone?), and spent my evening make the pom-poms, tails, and antennae, and putting the final touches on Gerald the Dancing Giraffe.  Not a day too soon, either.

Pattern: "Giraffe" from Susan B. Anderson's book Itty Bitty Toys
Yarn: Main body in Brown Sheep Nature Spun Worsted in "Impasse Yellow", all the orange except the pom-poms in Cascade 220 in colorway 9542 "Blaze", and the Pom-poms in Cascade 220 Paints in colorway 9721 "Orange Mix".

Timeframe: March 13th-May 16th.  To be fair, I knit the body and kind of let it sit around for a long time before doing the rest of it.
Needles: Size 6 DPN set

Mods: I did the same mods as I usually do for stuffed animals: instead of knitting all the limbs separate and sewing them all on the main body, I picked up the stitches straight from the body and continued as per the pattern instructions.  Another Mod on the hooves was I skipped rows 12 & 15 so the bottom of the hooves would have more even-looking decreases.  I've done both these mods in the past, and will definitely do them again.

Worst Part: The overall fiddly-ness of the antennae, spots, pom-poms, ears, and embroidery.  I forgot how long those detail parts take, and really pushed the deadline getting those finished.
Best Part: Giving it to my dancer before our show last night and having her absolutely love him!

(As you can see, Albert was also a big fan of Gerald.  Maeby's only interest was attempting to eat the pom-poms.)
Today I have to cast on for the Octopus I'm making for the head of my studio, and that's my last really big knitted piece I'm making for dance this year!  It feels really good to be almost done with those.
So close.  Maybe I can even get a little climbing in later this afternoon while it's still nice out...