This recipe for making Calico Catnip Mice for your cat or cats to enjoy is entirely original; I made it up and it is my own! It is copyrighted by being presented on this blog. You are welcome to use it to make as many as you like to use or to sell but the design is mine. Thank you for respecting that!
First, start with a 5" cotton square:
Flip it over so that the wrong side is up and fold one corner in towards the center about two thirds of the way:
Next you are going to fold the whole thing in half with the RIGHT SIDES TOGETHER.
But before you sew it, I want you to take a doubled folded hank of cut-off selvedges and add them inside the SHORT seam, so that your mouse will have a playful tail.
I used a nice generous two strands that were about 8" long when they were folded over.
Tuck them inside with the folds being caught into the short seam after you sew around the corner.
Be sure to backstitch for strength at the pointy "nose" end where you begin stitching. Sew down to the corner and pivot and continue to stitch the tails into place. Can you see the two folds sticking out in the picture above? That is a very short seam. Be sure to backstitch that short WHOLE seam so that the tails are sewn in doubly.
Once you are done stitching, turn the mouse right side out, using a chopstitck or blunt closed scissors to push the tiny triangluar nose out all the way.
Sorry this is a different fabric, but you can see that it makes a place to fill the mouse with the catnip. I placed my dried catnip into a clean and very dry used soda bottle so that I could pour it easily. Some is going to spill but it smells nice anyway.
I put in about a generous tablespoon of catnip.
Next, center the tail's seam in the middle and sew the whole thing closed, but backstitch the whole seam for strength. Here are some extra pictures:
These are lots of fun and quick to make, just don't stress out over some spilled catnip flakes!
After you make a bunch, put them into a plastic bag to keep them fresh for six months to a year and bring them out when you need one.
1 comment:
Happy Mothers Day Victoria! Darling mice, but my 2 cats want nothing to do with catnip! Go figure. I used to grow it, but when I realised they didn't want it, I let the plants go. Something ate it!!! Don't know what. They like my houseplants tho! Ugh!
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