Mighty Mice!

(and I continue to bomb my blog with new stuff!)

I'm so excited about this pair I could scream. 

EEEEKKK, a mouse.  (or two!)

Meet T.P. Day and Mr. Durr.

Ok, I'm going to sound like one of those nutty parents who shoves pics of their new baby in your face and goes on and on about how cute they are and how they're the smartest and most gifted spawn in the world.

But aren't my new babies just the cutest and most special babies in the whole WORLD.  I just know they will find cures to all the major diseases and win olympic medals and just be the gosh darn bestest babies in the whole gee-golly world!

Ok, I'll stop with that joke (it's dead, I know).

And yes, I'm all "crazy parent" because they are Orignail Patterns.  Well, not really "patterns" since there are no patterns.  I just made them up as I went.

See, that's the best part about working with felted sweaters.  You just wait for the creation to pop out at you (well, at least I do).  I buy the sweater based on the color or pattern or fiber content (and price, I like them cheap) but not with a set idea in mind.  They're just potential for the sake of potential.

Itchy potential.

These mice were made from part of a 100% wool sweater (the one I scored a few weeks ago at the thrift) and I was itching like MAD working with it.  I made the mistake of tossing it over my arm while I was cutting.  Bad idea.  With wool it's better to let it touch the least amount of skin as possible (and my hands don't get very itchy compared to my arms).

The face/head area is made from the button hole section of the sweater (and might I note, it had some really nice buttons that are pretty on both sides--saving them for future use).  The button hole area was doubled over but not completely sewn down along the edge.  It was only connected by the actual button holes (and along the top and bottom ribbing).  So even after felting it, the two layers were still separate and when I bent them up a bit (pushing two adjacent button holes together) it made a head shape (with the holes as the ears).

At first I thought it would become a fox.  The face shape was right and the ears were good (if cut pointy) but when I began body work it just wasn't going to pan out.

The head and body are one continuous piece.  To get a good fox (in a normal four paws on the ground pose) I would have had to make the head and body separate pieces which I'm convinced would have compromised the shape of the bottom of the chin (and I didn't want to lose that cute face shape at all).

Clearly the buttonholes weren't meant to be foxes because they are super fabulous mice (sitting up on their rumps).

That picture shows the stitching along the back.  I used a ladder stitch with a few well placed whip stitches here and there (mostly where a lot of fabric was joining, to reinforce).  Gotta love felted wool.  So forgiving. 

The bottom of the rump is a separate bitty circle piece so they would sit flat (and they do sit super well, not top heavy at all which makes me very happy).

The arms, legs, and tails are seams from different spots inside the sweater (the sweater is so funky now, with a bunch of the seams missing--it's like a funky cape).  The tails were naturally curly like that, but for the legs I just rolled the seam up on itself and left the end sticking out for the foot.  The arms are just straight seams.

It's obvious I'm super proud of these.  I just love when random one of a kind (or in this case, two of a kind) items pop up like this.  It makes me want to run out to the thrift and buy up every natural fiber sweater I can find and go nuts. 

I think there might still be a monster lurking in the remaining button holes.  The two holes at the bottom of the sweater are very close set and when turned on their side resemble (at least to me) Ooogie Boogie's eyes (from Nightmare Before Christmas).

But I need a break from the itchiness for now (and I need to work on the giant squid project).

Let's hear it for upcycling!