This is Piper. She is the newest addition to our family. The story goes like this: Son goes to concert in the park, son brings home free puppy without permission, long discussion between husband and I, decision to keep her is finalized. It was a difficult decision since we already have 3 dogs, 2 cats & a hamster. My son has agreed to pay for her expenses so this is going to be a learning process for him. He's also supposed to care for her which means he's going to find out very quickly what it feels like to raise a baby, well, at least to some degree.
She is a Basset hound mix but the vet said that just by looking at her, he would have assumed she was full blood. I've conceded that she is a cute pup--but then what pup isn't? Let the fun begin!
As you may already know from a previous post, we took a quick vacation to visit some friends in one city, then traveled to another city to visit some family members. One of our highlights (sarcasm) was visiting the opening of a new Piggly Wiggly. I remember as a small child going with my mother to shopping trips at our neighborhood PW. It has long since been gone and there are no PW's anywhere that I know of, that is, until now. I have to say that this one is a no-frills type of place and they were still stocking shelves. My husband bought me a t-shirt to commemorate the day:
I was actually looking for a PW shirt that has just the Piggly head with its little white butcher's cap on but this is what they had to offer instead. That's one cool pig-dude. I keep thinking about the Fonz when I look at it.
On our road trip home, we started seeing all these unusual vehicles pass us with the label GreatRace.com. So I started snapping photos through our bug-smudged windows thinking we were in the midst of something great. I had to check the website to see just what this was about. If you're curious, click the link too. We saw many other interesting cars but I wasn't able to get their pics taken.
And now, more on the Festive Fish:
This is the finished 4-pack (the right side). I decided to stop with these and take a closer look at their completed appeal. My chart needs to be adjusted. The purple and magenta fish are skinnier than the green & turquoise ones below them. I need to go back to the drawing board to see how I can fix this before I offer up the chart to share with anyone who is interested. Their mouthes also need to be modified to where they are more connected to the edges than floating like they are now.
I do, however, like the way they fit so nicely together (the wrong side is shown above) and how the intarsia is so easy to work with this project. It's a good way for a beginner to be introduced to the technique of making sure the yarns are wrapped the right way to avoid getting a hole. But there is the part where the tail fin of the magenta fish meets the head of the turquoise fish:
As progress is made, the pieces seem to shift like this. I haven't determined how to fix this but I'm okay with leaving them the way they are. Call me a slacker but sometimes I learn to like the imperfections.
An important warning to those who use this when traveling:
Call in advance if possible. I just received this latest addition (only a month ago) since it was included with my recent subscription so I assumed the information was current. I was wrong. Not only was the shop no longer in existance, the phone number was for a private residence. The "right" phone number was in the phone book and was one digit off. I don't think the folks at Knitter's check the information they put in their book ( a real pisser, excuse my French!). I was so hoping to buy yarn on this trip.
~Inner monologue: If you could see my face, you'd see a tear running down my cheek--sniff!~
