Obsession. Not Just A Perfume

Obsessions. I get 'em. Want to see the latest?
 
Happy Hippo and his cousin, Fatty Lumpkin, both created by the amazingly talented Heidi Bears (see all her patterns here.)
 
I've had Happy on my radar since the pattern came out, but Lumpy's release pushed me over the edge into 'must make all the things NOW' land. (Lumpy can also be a non-rocking horse, a unicorn or a Pegasus. Or one of each.)
 
The directions call for changing yarn color on 4 of the pattern's 5 rows. Which translates to a minimum of 8 tails for each and every one of the 44 motifs, for a grand, almost overwhelming, total of 352 tails. Minimum. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate weaving in tails??

Solution? Multi-colored sock yarn to the rescue.
 
I'm doing the center 3 rows in a pink/green/purple variegated yarn, with the last 2 rows in off-white (above). 
 
I experimented with doing just the last row in off-white, but wasn't happy with losing the petal's curve in row 3.
 
So now it's all about counting - 26 pentagons and 12 hexagons, each in their own little bag,
  
with octagons, heptagons and 2 cute little nose-agons still to come. Happy is slowly coming to life.