Number 10. Gecko!!!

My very favorite animal the gecko,(you didn't know that did you!!!).
After gentle hints, lots of inspiring photos Jane finally got bitten by the gecko bug and designed the most fabulous pattern for me. If you haven't seen all her geckos on her blog then you have missed a treat, and her gecko trimmed jacket is a real wow.
Tatting and geckos rule!!
I couldn't wait to give the pattern a test run and here is my first attempt.



He's OK apart from his eyes which ended up on the wrong shuttle!

Jane's geckos come in the most outrageous colour mixes that are beyond the wildest dreams of even the most fashion conscious gecko!! I guess my conservative choices will blossom into similar geckos.

BUT the remit of this challenge is to try to make realistic animals and so this was the aim in my second gecko.

My very own gecko expert said that Jane's gecko reminded him in it's shape of one of his New Caledonian geckos Rhacodactylus auriculatus commonly known as the Gargoyle gecko. Look particularly the shape of the tail,in the first photo, the base of the tail is bulbous and they continues as a short narrow tail. Also the relatively large head.

This was one of my favorite geckos, he had her for 16 years and she was not a youngster when he got her. Sadly she died about six months ago. You can't really see her true shape from these pictures, she did put on a bit of weight in her old age!





A nocturnal tree living gecko you can see how she would blend in with the bark.
She was always a favorite with visitors as she was slow to run away. Her skin was soft as velvet and so were her little paw pads. See how she can bend her toes upwards, the only vertebrate to be able to do that. This protects the 'sticky' micro hairs from getting dust and dirt in them.

So this is my tribute to her. Restrained by the colours of my threads she is a new variety R.auriculatus var.'Jane's Gargoyle'!



The thread is Coats Anchor perle 8 (from Coats India)and it really shines, the beads orange and silver lined brown, sparkle. She measures five and a half inches and if there is anybody out there like me who likes to know how much thread to use, she took 6.25m on sh1 and 4.5m on sh2 (I tat very tightly so you may need more). They have white eyes with a vertical slit like pupil which they can close as they have no eyelids. I used brown wooden ones about 5mm. may try some pale ones next.

I did tweak Jane's pattern just a little to give her a longer stride and a front left elbow. She is a very young and agile gecko!
She has a very tatty tail (looks like she may have been attacked by a bird!!) due to my inability to master Tonya's method of adding beads to a split ring, got it in the end tho but slightly differently. Lots more mistakes in there too.
The pattern is very easy to follow, done in one pass and when finished doesn't need blocking just a little flattening. When you do the feet (long picots) make sure the thread isn't twisted and they will lie perfectly round. I used 20mm picots.

Lots more geckos to come! Did you see my gecko memorabilia on my other blog.