Wool Felt & Fabric Mouse

Cute and fiddly...

I thought I would give the knitting a rest for five minutes and get some sewing done. I've been itching to get a project made from the fabulous new book by Amy Adams, Countryside Softies. The book came up in my recommendations on Amazon and I couldn't resist the cute fox on the front cover.

The book contains instructions and full sized templates for 28 little creatures, including an owl, a rabbit, a badger and a duck. I thought the style of the softies seemed familiar and indeed Amy also designed the Fancy Peacock I made last year from the Little Birds book.

All the countryside softies are made using a combination of printed fabric, craft felt and felted wool. The only flaw of the book is that it kind of assumes you have a ready supply of old woollen jumpers ready for felting, which I don't. I know I could do some knitting and then felt it, but that seems like a lot of work. Fortunately, Blooming Felt sells squares of felted wool that are just the right size for these projects.

After some deliberation, I decided to start with the mouse. The templates are provided full size so I simply photocopied the relevant page and stuck the pattern onto cardstock to cut out templates. I cut out the pieces in fabric and felted wool, trying to make sure I did the reverses correctly.

The body was the only part that could be machine sewn. I sewed the two body pieces right sides together with a gap for turning. The book recommends putting a pebble in the bottom of the body for ballast, but, not having any to hand, I used plastic pellets to stuff the bottom half of the body. I then hand sewed the base on. The book uses perle cotton 8 for the hand stitching, which I'd never encountered before, but someone recently gave me a huge bag of it, which was handy.

Having got the body sorted, I stitched on the tummy patch then made the ears. The ears and other extremities are made using blanket stitch. You get a bit of fraying with the raw edge of the cotton but I think that adds to its rustic nature. The book says you can use FrayCheck, but I don't like the finish on something this small.

The book uses tiny buttons for the eyes and nose, which I think are terribly cute. The whiskers were made from three knotted strands of perle cotton 5. I sewed the two tail pieces together and then attached them with a button to the back of the mouse.

As I'm rather idle, I used a ready-made Papermania bow for the mouse's head rather than making a felt flower. I sewed an additional rosebud to the tail to hide a dodgy bit of sewing. The book uses a felt heart on the body for personalisation, but, lazily, again I glued on a little apple motif.

I think my mouse is rather effective despite the fact my hand sewing is a bit rubbishy. I'm really looking forward to making the other creatures in the book - I have already cut out the pattern for the bumblebee...

Melx