Time To Make The Mice

My mainstay, for cat toys, is the standard catnip Mouse.  I use a simple design now. In the past I had a 3 piece pattern that I used but after a few years I tried a 2 piece pattern and liked the looks of them much better.  Not only was it quicker to sew, closing the opening on the body was much more efficient and eliminated about 2 minutes per toy when I was making them in 'production line'.  I usually cut 24 mice at a time and finish them in batches. 

 

 

 I use a standard V shape (slightly rounded at the point) that is about 4" long, machine sew down the V sides and leave the top of the V open. Turn and stuff, do a gather stitch around the opening, insert the tail and pull the thread tight to close it off.  A few more stitches to lock that in place and on to the ears/eyes. 

 

Mostly I use felt for the ears, and 8mm black beads (faceted if you like flashy, plain round ones if you don't care).  A yard of cotton fabric yields about 56 mice with very little waste left over, you alternate the V shape up/down with the folded edge at the end making one mouse when you open it up.  The black beads I buy in packs of 100 for $1.89. The 'rat tail' cording is 3 yards for 79 cents.  You can get 21 tails out of three yards.

 

If you vary the sizes you can go down as small as a 1 inch mouse but need to use a 5mm eye for those.  Smaller IS cuter, but it's the same amount of time for making each, and a bit harder to stuff the tiny ones and still get catnip into them. The little pink mouse with the white ears in the center is one that has a 1" long body.  I do make small ones occasionally, it uses up scrap fabric in a nice way.

 

Color-wise, any fabric print works fine so long as the print image isn't a giant one. The smaller the print the better it will look.  Don't use stretchy materials, the mice get 'deformed' and are not as cute.

 

I've tried using gold beads for eyes, they didn't come across the same way, looked sort of weird.  Red eyes on white mice are ok if you can find decent looking DARK red beads, don't use pink, they look cheap.  When the craft store ran out of the right size beads in black I've used dark blue and was happy with the final results, so there are alternatives if you end up not being able to get the right color.