A Pikey Bream

This is a Pikey bream (Acanthopagrus berda) I made for the little bear as a Christmas present. I have had the denim whales by Mevrouw Walvis and the fish Mimi Kirchner makes saved ever since I first saw their posts in mid 2011. At that time Grandad had only recently died and there were some clothes that I just couldn’t bear to part with or have them turned to into rags for the shed in particular were two pair of  corduroy trousers that he wore, which I’m sure were as old as me if not more. Grandad was also a very, very keen fisherman and the idea of making fish toys out of his old clothes for his great-grandchildren seemed like a very good idea. Of course these fish would have to be relatively anatomically correct as well, this is my family we’re talking about. I trawled the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry website for pictures of fish that I knew Grandad had caught. I then turned them into line drawings and from there into pattern pieces.  As you can see in the bottom picture I lost a little height on the fish as with the help of Mum I had to redo the top to get the dorsal fin to fit correctly.

 

Pikey-bream-Acanthopagrus-berda Pikey-bream-Acanthopagrus-berda outlineIMG_1419 Helen's fish

And there we have it, one Pikey bream from 2d to 3d.

1240 days or thereabouts

Is roughly how long it has been since I last saw Karl, my big full brother. I can’t really say he is my big brother because I have four of them and Karl is the youngest of them. To say I am excited is something of an understatement.

We have just picked up Karl from the airport, which was all very exciting and this is one of the goodies he brought with him. I keep on bringing the package up to my face and inhaling the delightful smell. mmmmm dried fish!!!!

The mother ship has arrived!