Number 5. A Tatted Medley of Meerkats

If you haven't already seen the latest critter to come from the ever increasing design collection of Jane Eborall, then here he is 'The Meerkat'.
I am not sure that I have ever seen a Meerkat in the flesh, certainly not in the wild, but recognised him instantly such is the cleverness of Jane's design.

I didn't have a great detail of choice for the right kind of colour for him so here are a few I tried.



First attempt was the variegated one using Twilley's 20. A difficult thread to use, rather coarse and hairy, had to keep using thread heaven in the end to control it.
Was not too happy with him, colour not great and beads too big.
Second attempt was in Oren Bayen 50 a soft 3ply thread that I am not too keen on but it tatted up really well, bit too dark though.
Third attempt was in DMC Perle 8, an even softer thread that I hadn't used before and it tatted up really well.

The Meerkat is fairly easy to tat, with a bit of concentration, especially with Jane's instructions for easy block tatting. In these threads he stands a little under 5 inches tall.

Now I know I am getting very pernickety about my animals but when I put them on a display board (you may have seen my display on my other blog, if not it will appear here soon) I think that it would be really nice to have two versions of the animal so that they don't all look identical.
The two flamingos look so well together that I thought that a Meerkat looking the other way could be good. Jane said 'Go for it!' so here he is. She will put him up on her web site I think.



The other 3 Meerkats were a bit suspicious of him at first but he will soon settle in!!




And then there were four.
Now dare I ask has anybody else designed a Meerkat for me to try!!!!