Making a Mouse Puppet

Since my kids are still sound asleep (worn out from this morning's playdate), I am making the mouse finger puppet that I need for our housework verse. I was originally going to knit one but I think that will take more time than it needs to. Plus I don't have any grey yarn. I checked Around the World With Finger Puppet Animals but she didn't have a forward facing mouse pattern. I need a little grey mousie with a checkered apron and a small broom. So I've decided instead of knitting or cutting her out of wool felt, I will try dry felting. Inspired by the pictures in Making Fairy-Tale Wool Animals (although theirs are made with pompoms mine will not be because 1) pompoms take forever, and 2) I need a space for my finger to go), I have grey roving all set out and some grey felt for cutting the ears & tail. You also need small glass beads for the eyes. I have my felting needles I got at Suzanne's workshops (she lets you keep the needles), but you can also buy them online. Another source for needles is to buy a dry felting kit; they always come with one and then you can just keep it. In fact, if you are itching to try needle felting and are starting from scratch, I would recommend stopping by A Child's Dream Come True -- see the link on the left, under my favorite places to shop -- where you can buy all the main supplies (book, roving, felting needles, and wool felt) for this project. I don't know where to find the little broom. We went through this before, making Mrs. Thaw for the nature table, and I ended up using a little doll with a basket of fluffy wool which a friend had made for me. :-) I told Natalie she was carrying all the snow away in her basket.

One more tip: cut a strip off the short end of your sponge (a kitchen sponge is the easiest surface to felt on) and use this as the form around which you felt your puppet. This way you can be sure that you have left a large enough space for your finger.