Mouse!

I’ve been posting so much about photography lately that it feels weird to show something else. Life and photography posts tend to follow a chronological order and I’ve gotten into a groove of treating this blog like a diary of sorts.  But that’s not what it is.  I’m supposed to be using this blog to help me push myself creatively.  I thought I was wasting time on unimportant tasks and that this blog would provide me incentive to be more productive.  Actually get going on some of my creative ideas.  I’ve come to realize that actually, I don’t have a whole lot of time.  It’s frustrating.  I want time for Christmas.  That’s what I want.  Making something good takes time.  I have plenty of ideas.  That’s the easy part.  But then it takes so much time and energy to work those ideas out, figure out how to make them come to life.  Lots of trial and error.  And if you want to sell what you make, you have to make sure it’s affordable.  I really love the sweater I created but it isn’t affordable.  So I have one single prototype that I could produce.  I’ll do a post on it when I find it and get pictures of it.  It’s a very very cute pixie hat.

But today… Today is the day I introduce you guys to the big guy who gave me the name for this blog.  I made him as an assignment for a machine knitting class back when I was studying at CTCM. Our last assignment, the big one, was to create a stuffed object.  It had to be, umm, 12 inches big at least? Or maybe 18? Something like that.  And the teacher wanted to see us create a complex shape.  Not just a boring old square cushion. I had this idea to make a mouse but he ended up way bigger than I’d planned.  See, my mother is French.  When I was a kid, she never talked about the tooth fairy.  It was a mouse that was going to come get my tooth from under my pillow.  So I thought I would make a tooth fairy pillow that would be a mouse.  With a little pocket on the front.  Because of the size requirement, he ended up way bigger than necessary.  So here he is.  My mouse.

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I do love him a lot.  He’s so far from perfect but there’s a good idea there.  Part of the assignment was to monitor our costs and while I don’t remember the exact costs, I do know he’s too expensive to produce.  Besides, he has other problems.  But there’s the idea.  A tooth fairy mouse doesn’t need to be so big for starters.  I could make him much smaller. When I look at him closely, I’m unsatisfied with his body’s construction.  He’s basically made from a cone with half of a sphere at the end.  I used something called short row shaping to make the cone and I need to change the way I did it.  Without going too technical, I need to change my triangles from rectangle to isosceles. And the decreases and seams on the half sphere part make his rear end look weird. And the ears are too floppy.  The legs and tail don’t quite work either. Finally, the beige is a bit drab.  Wow, there’s so much more wrong with him than I though at first! But I still love him. A lot. I guess that’s why I’m willing to keep working on him…

Once I’ve fixed the construction problems, I’m thinking that a fabric belly would be adorable.  And I could make matching ears. If he’s small enough, he may not even need legs.  I’m sure I could get something sellable with some work! Sigh. See why all I want for Christmas is time?

About deuxsouriceaux

Creative mommy at home to two wonderful little girls, trying to juggle family, sewing, exercise, family, knitting, photography, and did I mention family?