It has been few days since any real posting of mine. My schedule filled up with all kinds of animals to look after this weekend and once I got home and showered off all the accumulated disgusting, I wasn’t exactly focused enough to type things for fun. But I’m back, and here is what I did in my slightly dazed state.
Late last week I decided to try a pattern I found online for a sort of standing/sitting mouse toy for the cats. Since they love their other mice and fish so much I figured why not! But instead of a cute little mouse catnip toy I ended up with this:
The Headless Penguin
THE HEADLESS PENGUIN, as he is now endearingly known in this household, is a big hit with the kittens, but a huge failure when it comes to actually being a mouse (of any recognizable shape or even abstract form).
At that point I threw the Headless Penguin into the cat toy basket and became determined to create a template for a mouse that when sewn together is recognizable. So, while decompressing from taking care of a load of cats all over the city (one of which acts like she needs an exorcist every time I enter her house), I toyed with how to fix the penguin problem and finally came up with this little guy, and an easy pattern with instructions right on it to share with you.
He’s a little silly in the face, I realize this, and can definitely be toyed around with a bit (bigger ears, 3D arms, etc), but at least he has a full body and head. I apologize that he’s in all black. I’m running seriously low on anything with color in it. The fabric store is a little difficult to get to, and so is money at this point, so black is back for now.
Here’s the pattern to print in case you want one of these littles all your own.
Here’s What You Need for the project
- Felt in whatever color strikes your fancy
- embroidery thread
- stuffing of your choice
- scissors, pins, needle
- your favorite show to keep your brain busy while you piece it all together. Personally, the mouse took me about an episode of Supernatural. I’m going to miss those boys when it’s over.
It’s that easy. Simmy, my cat, wouldn’t wake up long enough to model it for me, so I used him as a cute platform with which to display my end result.
Don’t feel too bad for him, he threw up in my hair about 2 hours later.
“There are still many more days of failure ahead, whole seasons of failure, things will go terribly wrong, you will have huge disappointments, but you have to prepare for that, you have to expect it and be resolute and follow your own path.”
― Anton Chekhov
Lavender and Broken Bones 
My cat throws up on me ALL the time. If we got our cats together, I wonder if they would throw up on each other? I think it must be worth a try (says my dry-cleaning bill).
It was so awful. I was sleeping and then bam, right in my hair. I wasn’t even ready. He looked pretty ashamed of himself after.
You have just described the summer of 2012 in my house, minus the shame part, of which my cat feels none. The funniest part, if there is one, is that my cat’s name is Burrito, so when he throws up on me at 3:15 a.m. and my window is open, everyone in the adjacent apartment just hears me calling for food.
that is perfect.