Have you ever thought of something - an image, a new idea to try, something you'd like to have a go at or a new technique to master - then once you've thought of it, you notice the same sort of thing elsewhere, or something related to it or something someone else has done before you got to try it or the thing you thought of suddenly pops up in a few different places and you wonder if it's a coincidence or if these things were going to be there anyway and you just weren't looking for them before...
This is the case for me with this little guy and now I am thoroughly obsessed.
It started with an old craft book I have (and one that I LOVE - Jean Greenhowe's "Favourite Dolls and Toys" - she does wonderful knitting patterns too if you are after beautiful toy patterns to knit). The book has a section on toy houses and in there is a Dormouse House - made totally of fabric and made to look like a tree stump. The house has a zip running down the centre and it unzips into a loungeroom and a bedroom. There's cozy lounge chairs and a log fire and a patchwork quilt on the bed and a family of dormice live there...
I loved the little dormouse house the minute I saw it and it's my only (so far!) niece's first birthday next month so I am making her a dormouse house. She will be a bit little to play with it yet but another one of my obsessions is making her gifts rather than buying her things - we have a large family and there's a few grandkids on her Dad's side too so she has oodles of things already and will no doubt be spoilt for her first birthday (secretly anyway I'm not sure who will enjoy the dormouse house more - Amelie or me!!).
I haven't made the little dormice yet and there's heaps more to do but I am absolutely loving making it so far (although it's been really challenging and fiddley - miniature curtain ties are not easy to tie - it reminded me of trying to tie bows on my Strawberry Shortcake dolls' clothes when I was little...)
I haven't really thought much about dormice before (funny that..) but when I Googled them I discovered they like to hibernate, live in France, eat berries and they're soooo cute...
I searched for them on Etsy to see if anyone there shared my obsession but only a couple of things popped up. I started to think about drawing my own dormouse pattern and then I met up with my bookclub on the weekend to see The Kite Runner (which was last month's book) and we couldn't locate copies of this month's chosen book so decided to go with the second option - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (which surprisingly none of us have ever read except for bits and some of the poems - Beware the Jabberwock my son! - and we'd all seen the Disney version) and who should appear in Chapter Seven: A Mad Tea Party but.....
The Dormouse.
I am now dreaming of dormice and obsessing over patterns for small mice living in little teapots...maybe one day I'll make a little dormouse teapot house.
Yup. Obsessed.
Thank you for your lovely comments about Shem and inspiration. It's nice to know there's people out there - and such inspiring people too :)
Oh! Amelie is my favouritist name ever!! I bet she will just love this little mouse and his little house. So adorable!:-)
Posted by: nichole | Thursday, 31 January 2008 at 12:43 AM
thanks rebecca!! The thread is lovely isn't it...it's actually the weft from a gorgeous silk fabric my friend Mel gave me. I think I'm going to have to beg her for more as my supply is slowly diminishing :-( You need an embroidery foot for your machine to do letters and such, and you need to lower the feed dogs so you can manipulate the fabric or paper in any direction as you sew.
Posted by: nichole | Thursday, 31 January 2008 at 07:27 PM
Oh my gosh...I had no idea dormice were that cute! I can't wait to see what you come up with for a pattern!
Posted by: Stacey | Friday, 08 February 2008 at 11:55 PM
That doormouse is extremely adorable. Did you ever see the photo a posted of a gerbil.
http://threebuttons.blogspot.com/2007/06/so-cute.html
Posted by: Angela | Wednesday, 13 February 2008 at 08:09 AM
Oops, I forgot to mention the baby gerbil photo was sourced from google. I wasn't fortunate enough to have held one myself.
Posted by: Angela | Wednesday, 13 February 2008 at 08:11 AM