Designer Gecko

Now you have to go back a post, to Another Weekend of Geckos.in order to understand all this!!

OK all sitting comfortably! Righty oh!

After I ran out of thread for the grey leaf tail gecko I decided to start another one but this time it would be in WOW! colours. I was tired of using authentic gecko colours so this would be a Designer Gecko.

Never heard of a Designer Gecko...no I don't suppose you have! Well it's much the same as a new variety of Orchid or Rose that has been selected for it's beauty and rarity.

Occasionally a new variation will be appear in a gecko and the breeder will think ooooh! that's nice.......and so they try to breed more of them. This is often a very long drawn out process depending on whether the gene change responsible is dominant or recessive and may take several generations, until you can be sure that you can breed that variation on a regular basis. It's just a question of selection of the variants that you like. Leopard geckos are classic Designer Geckos.

Because that variant is rare then it will be sought after! and so it will be with my Designer Gecko!!

What thread did I chose....you guessed it none other than Rainbow Bright.

A Rainbow Gecko should be beautiful...or it maybe it will be a bit odd...which do you think it will be?????

Here is my first one started in Germany...



The beads are white opaque that I used for some of my other geckos, the eyes are black as I thought it needed a strong contrast....fire opal swarovski crystals in his head.....the toes are smaller than I normally make them....isn't it amazing tho' how all the toes are much the same orangey red colour!!

The fascinating thing about tatting a gecko in variegated thread is that you never know exactly what it will look like....I had wondered if every leg would be totally different. Of course now I wondered if the toes would be more or less similar if I made the toe picots bigger...mmmm

and the answer is.....



probably more similar.....but isn't he gecko so different...same beads....different effect when the outline of the body is in different colours.

Here are the two little fellas playing together.



The next gecko just had to have my new leaf tail, hubby's favourite.



Doesn't he look different with his pale greeny/blue toes, deep blue silver lined sparkly beads, AB crystal swarovskis and his eyes....oh his eyes are beautiful, I can't describe them except to say that they catch the light in a different spot depending where you are looking from, making them look so realistic.

One more to go....tho' there is another half made too.



This one is probably my favourite, the toes are similar to the last one but the body outline is darker and the red beads and ruby red swarovskis give a really rich feel.
the eyes are fabulous, just one pair that I bought I don't know where, they are deep clear green with accents of red and gold. I finally decided to take both shuttle threads through the eye beads to avoid the thread running around the outside of the bead.

Here are the last two together.....



...see how the light has caught the blue eyes in a different place.

Of all the geckos that I have tatted these rainbow ones just have to be my best ever. They may even be the best thing I have ever made!

You can't get any idea from these scans how gorgeous they really are.
Two of them are ear marked for my denim jacket but whether they will ever get there is another matter altogether...I hate sewing!

Must also show you one of the geckos my tat friends made a while ago....



.......this is a Tokay Gecko.

Sad to say that if my Rainbow Geckos were out in the wild they wouldn't last a minute before they had been spotted and eaten......that is unless they were on Rainbow Trees!!

Do please take the time to leave a comment if you enjoyed this post, they mean such a lot to me. So which do you like the best?????

Oh, and didn't Jane Eborall do a wonderful job when she designed this gecko for me.

The ChocoRaspberry Family!

BEWARE!!! Very long post! You have been waiting for this...haven't you!!

ChocoRaspberry turned out to be a big hit....with me and with you! Thanks for all your kind comments. If you haven't already had your mouth water..then look here at my original post.

I just couldn't get enough of it and it was singing DOILEY to me. Then it occurred to me that I could select certain parts of ChocoRaspberry and that would make it much more interesting....and so The ChocoRaspberry Family was born.

Working from dark to light the first one to be dyed separately was Chocolate Sauce the topping for my delicious dessert. It did think of making a variegated chocolate thread but decided against it as my Chocolate sauce needed to be smooth so I just let the natural variation found in a hand dyed thread give it interest. I am sure most of you will already have a brown thread in you stash...just maybe not as yummy as this one.



Next to come was Raspberry and Chocolate Mousse...that's the bit under the Chocolate sauce and on top of the raspberries with a like bit of refining to make it more yummy.


So the first thing I did was to tat with them. Susan Fuller's Hearts Desire of course.
I will do my best to show these colours as they really are...not easy.



Here it is again but with Chocolate sauce for the chains.



Here they both are together with ChocoRaspberry.



The next bit to dye was Raspberry Sorbet..... I had already dyed this colour combo a year ago and loved it and no had to try to repeat it.....well several trials and hearts later I got it to my satisfaction.

Since it is a sorbet with no cream in it I wanted the raspberry colour to be more intense...and have a wider range from deep to pale. Again you probably have similar threads in your stash.







I tatted Raspberry Sorbet with Chocolate sauce chains and I got......Turkish Delight...I love this combo.





The final bit of the jigsaw that I wanted was something very pale...a Raspberry Ripple Ice Cream. This took even more trials getting paler and paler and paler and still having enough contrast.
I found that a 10 to 11 yard sample would give me a heart and maybe a butterfly.

Sorry if I am boring you...this is just the way my mind works.



These are all very pretty in their own right. The bottom one is getting there.....



It's hard to see but it goes down to pure white.... I have something very similar in my stash and I really don't like threads that go down to pure white. It looks like very artificial ice cream to me!!!

So I decided to add a little pure vanilla to my ice cream.....here is the result....Raspberry Ripple with Real Vanilla



Can you see the difference when I show you the two together?

In another life if this hadn't been in the ChocoRaspberry family I would have called it Coconut Ice 'cos that's exactly what it looks like.



I would like to tat this with Chocolate Sauce but I could keep going with this forever!! I have already bored you too much.





So meet the whole family.



Finally here is my stash!! Lot of tatting there.



Do please let me know what you think and which you like best...if you read my blog and have never commented now is the time. It's easy just click on post comment...you don't need a blog of your own to do this. Each and every comment is valued.

Another weekend of Geckos!

Most years we go to a Geckofest in Germany...this always seems to be potentially terrifically exciting...but generally isn't!

This year it was to be held in Berlin...but was actually 70 kilometers north of Berlin in a small village....the drive by taxi there and back was beautiful....still sounds exciting...except that it is always held on the Whit Bank Holiday weekend so that all the enthusiasts can get to the meeting....so far so good...but previous experience has taught me that in a small place the shops all close at 12pm on the Saturday and nothing opens again until Tuesday.. I sometimes think that they roll up the streets and all go and enjoy themselves somewhere else.

Even the garden centers close which is the exact opposite to my country where they would expect to do great business on a holiday weekend.

So on Saturday morning I have to make a decision...do I go and look for shops(which can be very interesting) or do I stay at the meeting...as Saturday morning in when the breeders show their geckos and is the best bit for me. The rest of the time is spent listening to talks...in German in a darkened room. Honestly there are only so many slides of geckos and where they are found, that I can take...especially when I can't understand the commentary.

There are only 2 other people from England out of about 70 who go and they are now great friends who make it worth while for me.

Well... a year or so ago I decided that I would tat geckos to take to the Geckofest. I always look for gecko souvenirs there, so I would show something new to interest gecko enthusiasts or their families.

I tatted like a mad thing and produced a box full of geckos...all different...which means that I didn't actually want to part with any of them!!

You can see them here and here and here and here, and finally here...that's for all the people new to my blog who didn't know that I am mad about geckos...as well as being just mad!!

So having tatted all those geckos we didn't get to the meeting last year after all!!
This year I almost didn't make it either. It was only the very day before the flight that I was deemed fit to fly and so it was all a bit of a rush to get ready. Hubby desperately proud of my geckos wanted me to take them, so unprepared as I was I did.

I had intended mounting them on card with an explanation of the history of the pattern and the designer and about the thread, producing a poster to say...in German...how many knots they took and that they had Swarovski crystals, hand dyed thread, blah blah blah, but only managed to make a laminated sheet of a collage of my geckos.



In truth is that I didn't want to part with any of them, but if I was going to, then it would be to someone who appreciated all the work and skill that went into making them and was prepared to value my time and skill.

And so I spent the Saturday morning tatting a gecko, a lot of people were interested and I soon sold one to a lovely fella for his wife who was the gecko enthusiast. he asked her first if she liked it. I could have sold a lot more...at a price...one lady thought she was going to buy one for 30 cents....I don't think so!!! I am still laughing at that! and I was happy to keep my work for another day.

I did give tatted butterflies to everyone who admired my work tho'.

So would you like to see the gecko that I tatted.

In my gecko tatting season last year I designed a new tail for Jane's pattern (Pamela's Gecko)to make a Leaf Tail Gecko..then I ran out of steam and never actually showed it to Jane...I never even scanned him.....so here is my original Leaf Tailed Gecko...

This is a real Leaf Tail Gecko



They don't all have such a big tail as this one.....

and this is my interpretation. Grey was the only suitable thread that I had and it was my intention to dye some thread for the purpose.



and yes Jane I did write out the pattern! but my drawing isn't much good.

For the meeting I asked himself...who knows these things what colour I should use. Unfoetunately he replied all Leaf tails are nocturnal and tend to be grey or brown.

Hmmm!

Well I had a 15 yd sample that I made way back last year and called Elephant Browns and that would be perfect.
Unfortunately by the end of the weekend I had run out of thread...will I be able to remember what it was???? I do have a record of the dyeing and the thread was Coats Aida 20 in a fawn colour that I didn't use much ..just to see what it would look like. Aida seems to be thicker than my normal thread and so the gecko is bigger and needed more thread.

Here he is...poor little soul..he is 'armless!! He has lovely nocturnal like opalescent eyes...part of the fun is choosing the eyes and the beads and the Swarovski's.



Here is a taster of some baby geckos at the show......




They are Knob Tailed Geckos from Western Australia....several generations ago for these little fellas as they are captive bred. So many geckos species will survive due to the skills of these enthusiasts.

Goggle Knob tailed Gecko to see how gorgeous they are.

I think I need to a block tatting gecko pattern to produce these stripes....anyone, anyone!!!

You must be tired of reading about geckos so I will save what I tatted next until another day.

So did I enjoy my weekend...well yes i suppose enough to consider going again next year!!.....I soon forget the boring bits!!

The Hotel hosting the meeting was on the banks of a canal and it was lovely to sit out in the sunshine and watch the boats go by and under a fabulous old lifting bridge.







Before the bridge is a lock where the water level is raised and lowered.



The weather was lovely except that at about 5 to 6pm the sky often goes black and is followed by sheeting rain, thunder and lightening...the exact opposite of here where at that time a dull rainy day will often brighten into sunshine and give a lovely evening.
May/June is Spargal season.... white asparagas so we always have to have some.

I can understand why the village closes down as the people go out and enjoy themselves.





Even the hotel was decorated to look like a boat.



Next year the meeting will be in Dresden.....or somewhere nearish!!!