by Kympatti
I saw the sample of Maisha before I saw the kit and absolutely loved it. Not surprisingly I had to have a kit!
Maisha's legs are not jointed, and I realised I would need to position them carefully on the body before stitching them into place,. (To make sure the legs were level, and that it would stand up by itself). I achieved this by the deft use of long needles and pins!
It is my belief that the shading of a meerkat is very important. Unfortunately I am not certain exactly what markings/shading are needed for them and I was so bothered that I would do this wrong, that of course, I did! You do get an idea of what shading you need to do from the finishing instructions and the kit photo, but I was concentrating so hard on trying to get it right that I ended up getting it wrong. I forgot to leave the front areas free of colour and as you can see above, and I shaded everything!
The more experience you get with Copic pens the better you get. I am sitll in the 'learning stage'.
Most of the patterns I have had from Kympatti are so well put together that you hardly need to read the making up instructions. Often the techniques are the same, so they tend to use the same written instructions for everything. The Meerkat pattern did have a small section of 'Finishing Techniques'.
In summation, I think Maisha the Meerkat is one of the cutest things that Kympatti have ever created. I believe that anyone could make one and the only thing that might need a little more concentration would be positioning the finished legs to the body, also perhaps what and how you shade the meerkat. Other than that, chances are you will be amaized and thrilled with it.
I was so pleased with my first meerkat that I made a second one, using my own, slightly shorter nap, fabric. I considered doing more, a sort of family of meerkats and created a third, half size version which was also good. I have a fourth meerkat in the pipeline, a more miniature one w hich will be half the size of the third meerkat. I achieved the smaller sized versions by reducing the original pattern size.