A turtle in the making

So I took a long break from knitting, but now I'm back. My friend's birthday is coming up, and after pondering what to make her, I decided on Sheldon the Turtle from Knitty. Because she once expressed admiration for the turtles. Something along the lines of "Look at the turtles" when we were in the Botanical Garden, looking at, you guessed it - turtles.
OK, so I clearly had no idea what to make for my friend, and browsing through Knitty's old patterns, Sheldon seemed like the best choice. So I went out to buy some green cotton, only to find out that my LYS doesn't carry nice happy turtle colors in cotton. I ended up buying acrylics and CO yesterday.
This is the stage of completion today: one body, stuffed. Four legs, not stuffed. One third of a shell. Lots of yarn tails and tangles all over my bed. What can I tell you, knitting is messy.