A guild member gifted me some amazing fabric – lots of it. I cannot wait to get going on a crazy quilt design! To thank her, I wanted to make her an ornament. The guild had a holiday dinner with an ornament exchange so I was hopeful to make two. Alas, I had zero ready. For shame! I had the ornament picked out but you know what the problem was? I couldn’t get to my felt! Remember my last post, about organizing everything? Blame it all on these very nice mice!

I have been following Ann Wood Handmade now for years – maybe even, dare I say, something like a decade? One day, I hope to be able to support her work and have a little piece of it in my home as I absolutely adore her little camper birdies! Anyway, she so kindly put out a free pattern for Very Nice Mice so I had a couple of goes at it.

The first mouse was given away just after completing it to a friend of ours to take home to his wife. I don’t even really remember what it looked like, ha! The second came out too strongly in it’s face so for the third, I used two strands of embroidery thread rather than a piece of perl cotton. But that face came out too lightly, so on the fourth mouse I did a combination and I really liked it.

On the fourth mouse, I also changed the whiskers (which are not included in the pattern) from fishing line to regular sewing thread. I am not sure which I like better; I may still experiment or remove them. On this last mouse, I also decided to add a little nose with satin stitch. I liked that so much, I added the nose to the other two. Then I decided to fix the third mouse’s face by adding bolder eyes. I regretting not color-matching the belly thread better on the other two, but you live and learn, and that’s the point!

I was just finishing these guys up at the candy store, becoming satisfied with my workmanship and planning how to go about the gift for my fellow guildswoman when another shopkeep came in for her afternoon popcorn pick-me-up and adored them. After a quick chat, she asked if I’d be interested in putting them in her shop. After some thinking, I reached out to Ann to ask about selling off of her free pattern. Happily, she was fine with my selling them. To thank her, please go check out her lovelies!

And so thus, I made them fit the Scandinavian shop’s theme. One got a red and white cord for a scarf that I made with yarn. One got a red Nordic snowflake (definitely not my best work since I was trying to embroidery on a mouse belly rather than on a flat piece of felt!). One got a red and white Danish heart basket. The shopkeep made a little tiny door for them to stand by on display. Super cute!

Alas, this is the only photo I have of them finished:

If they don’t sell, these little mice can just decorate the shop:) It was neat to have someone approach me to sell something so I think that’s certainly a fair trade! Another shopkeep, who deals in “primitive” style goods, saw my mice and then asked me what else I do. I’m thinking I may take these offers a little more seriously and explore some options in the future, who knows!