Red Christmas Mushrooms As Cat Toys

Almost time to start thinking about making stuff for the Christmas events.  I do up a red Christmas mushroom that sells pretty nicely and has minimal machine sewing for it.

JoAnn Fabrics has a red cotton with white polka dots in the quilting wall section.  Half a yard of it will make a nice number of mushrooms (more than a dozen).  For the white stems I get a white on white print, from the same cotton section on their wall. 

 

Cut a 6 inch circle of the red fabric.  You will do a gather stitch with white thread or red thread around the edge, pull it slightly tight once you've gone all the way around, fill with fiberfill and catnip, then pull the edge entirely closed, making the pucker as tight as you can. The stem will hide this opening.

 

For the stem cut a white rectangle about 2 1/2 inches by 3 inches.  The 3 inches is the length, so fold the shorter side over in half, right sides together. Machine sew down the side and across the bottom. Turn right side out and stuff with plain fiberfill (no catnip). 

 

Set the open end of the mushroom stem over the closure of the red ball and hand stitch it tightly down in place, covering all the areas where the puckered top come together.  Done!

 

These can be stuffed without catnip and used as package decoration on presents too.