Thestral Tessellation Afghan - Read With Me!

I've been working on this for a while now.
It's finally done. (Click on photos to enlarge).





I'm calling it Thestral Tessellation.

It's crocheted using my trusty size J cabled afghan hook and just about every color imaginable.
(Mostly I Love This Yarn and Red Heart yarns. Also some TLC yarn as well.)

The the theme is "written" on the front there.
It says "Read with me!"

It's an homage, again, to J.K.Rowling and her awesome creation of the Thestral, (which, for non-Potter-a-hol-ics, is a winged horse-like creature that is invisible to most people). Most children anyway.

I've also made a castle up at the top of the tessellation above the Thestrals.
The checks all around are some real and many imagined House colors. (I didn't have silver yarn, Slytherins. Forgive me).

I used a pattern from Jessica Tromp's site for the Thestral.
But only the bottom half of the chart. Then I repeated it a couple of times to the top of the last Thestrals.
I used a cross stitch alphabet chart for the words.
Then I just made up the castle part on my own.

One the whole thing was done, I added a sort of rainbow border, (minus purple as I ran out of that), around the whole afghan in single crochet stitch with a size J hook.





Here's the back just after I finished but before I wove in all the loose ends. And then a photo of the back when it was all done.





The first photo is the front just after I finished the chart. A bunch of bald-headed thestrals and no rainbow border with loose ends still not woven in the back. Then the second photo shows the finished afghan again. I surface crocheted the manes on with wispy yarns in orange, black, and blue. (Using the vertical stitches to crochet underneath. They don't show up on the back at all).





These are close-up shots of the bottom and then top.





And finally, just a big close-up shot of the middle part.

Yes, I know. Thestrals are black. Hmmm, perhaps the others are invisible. Anyway I needed contrasting colors.

I chose the "Read with me!" theme because I think reading with your kids is so important. (I was going to put "Read to me!" but I thought the word "with" was more interactive.)

I miss looking forward to the next Potter book. I miss the fact that my kids are all grown now and don't need me to read stories to them anymore. Thank you J.K.Rowling!