Maine and the accidental Mouse

I haven't posted in a little while... I have been busy... I have been rehearsing for my Choir's Christmas Concert and then took a November trip to the East Coast to Maine and had a fabulous visit with my good friend Henry. It was during this Maine trip that we drove from Augusta to Freeport and visited the flagship LLBean store. AMAZING. Did you know its open 24hrs a day? Well now you do.

As we were driving to Freeport and were approaching the Maine Turnpike Toll Booth station there was a rest area exit and something called the Center for Maine Craft. I looked at Henry and said kiddingly "ooooohhhh what's that... a center for Knitting and crochet crafts?  ha ha ha. Its probably a place for boats and marine craft." Henry said he had no idea he'd never seen the sign before... so I wanted to stop and get some Starbucks coffee and as he waited in the car I went in.

WELL - low and behold it was a knitting and crafts store front sitting right next to the Starbucks. I called Henry on his phone in the car and said --- It's taking me longer because I'm stopping to look at stuff.. They were all local artisans who had put their craft up for sale:

Absolutely beautiful and amazing crafts and hand blown glass. This is where I picked up a few handcrafted wooden bookmarks. Just so pretty. Then I noticed this little basket of Mice. I'm a knitter and having worked on felted catnip fish - these looked like catnip mice - and they were. So cute - I picked up two. One for my Kitty ZuZu and one for Henry's Kitties: Sebastian and Slinky.:

They were a hit with all the kitties, especially Slinky and Sebastian. My cat is taking a little more time to come around to the idea of this new catnip mouse....  So since my Catnip Fish were a hit, I was on the prowl for a mouse pattern. I remembered there was one in the book that I got my Fish out of so yesterday I tried that pattern. The book is: Vogue Knitting - Knits for Pets". I must say I didn't care to much for the mouse after I knit it.

So the mouse on the left is the original from Maine. The one in the middle is the first one I did out of the Vogue book and its just shaped weird. The one on the right is from a Ravelry pattern search and it is the one that looks most like the one I bought in Maine. Its round and actually looks like a mouse....

I am about to felt the two I did.... and will post pictures of how they turned out but I am very excited the that second one I did is going to be perfect.

So I just got the mice out of the washer after being felted. Absolutely did not like the middle one at all. Really doesn't even look like a mouse. The Blue one was awesome just like I thought. It is in the dryer right now... Woo Hoo!!!

Here's the felted and stuffed final product. So cute!

Terry-Jo
~Keeping You in Stitches