Of Mice And Martha

One of my sewing pupils has a pet cat, and wanted to make a toy for him.

We found an idea for mice in this MS book.

The pattern is on the CD which comes with the book, so I printed it off.

Here you can see the ones from the book and the ones my pupil made.

I have to say that I was a little disappointed with the pattern and instructions [reading a few blogs, I find I am not alone in this – I found others using phrases like “instructions a little light”]

The narrow rouleau loop tail was really hard for a novice sewer [next time, I would suggest using a length of shoe lace] but the main problem was lack of marking on the pattern. It would have helped to have had “Nose” and “Tail” on the pattern pieces. My girl tried incredibly hard, but the tail somehow got sewn onto the nose end! She also needed an indication of where to stitch the ears. I think too that the ear pattern could have done with a clear marking as to which was the edge and which bit joined onto the head. Also a reminder to ‘clip curves’ would not have gone amiss.

We added some catnip to the stuffing – and I suspect the cat will enjoy these mice whatever they look like. My pupil loved them and that is what matters. This is the first time I have printed off a pattern from the CD – I look forward to trying something else. If I can find an appropriate piece of fabric in my stash, I may make myself the drawstring pants to wear as summer pjs.