Mouse Tutorial Part 2

Yesterday, we made the mouse ears, nose and eyes. Today, we will finish up the top section including a bit of tail. We'll also finish up the head and arms.

Making the forehead section is very easy. Just attach the eyes to a 1.5 by 3.5 inch rectangle of the dark fabric and then attach that to a 1.5 by 3.5 inch rectangle of the background. (Of course, you can also sew the eyes to the 1.5 inch strip of dark and then trim...either way...)

Next we'll make the tip of the tail...and this requires us to make a double flip triangle. This is really fun and easy. You will need a 3.5 by 2.5 inch rectangle of the background, a 2.5 inch square of the dark fabric and a 1.5 inch square of the background.

Lay the dark fabric face down on the background fabric and sew along the diagonal. Remember to sew just slightly off of the diagonal toward the corner so you can iron it over and have the corners meet. Trim away the bottom two layers leaving a quarter inch seam.

Now for the double flip. Place the small square of background fabric in the corner of your flip triangle, sew along the diagonal, then iron it over, and trim. You have just done a double flip.

You now have all the pieces for the top section of the mouse. Sew them together as shown.

The mouse requires two pairs of half square triangles (HSTs): two using the background fabric and the light fabric and two using the dark fabric and the light fabric. You may make the HSTs using your favorite method...for me its using the Easy Angle ruler. I am using 2.5 inch fabric to make an HST that will be 2 inch square finished.

The picture above shows the triangles cuts using the easy angle ruler and also the finished HSTs.

And now we're going to use the HSTs with the background fabric to make the mouse cheeks. For this, we are going to put a flip triangle criss-cross on the HST.

Now that you have made a flip triangle over the two HSTs, your mouse has cheeks. Sew the cheeks to the nose, and then sew a 1.5 inch strip on top of the nose section.

Tomorrow we will finish the mouse tutorial...giving him the rest of his body, his feet and his tail.