For a few days I was into making mouse pincushions: maybe because I was reading my kids the currently out-of-print Miss Bianca by Margery Sharp (which is a sequel to The Rescuers, and thus the main characters are mice).
It’s a very simple pattern: a teardrop shaped body (top and bottom identical), mouse ear shaped ears, and a mouse-tail shaped tail. Sew ears on to one of the teardrops, at an appropriate place a little back from the point (nose), baste tail to one of the round ends of a tear drop (tail pointing in), embroider eyes with floss (mine are twinkling star shaped eyes, just because), sew tear drops together right sides facing, leaving a hole for stuffing, turn mouse right side up.
As for the proper stuffing for a pincushion: sawdust, emery powder, fine sand are all nice. I had none of these so I tried a bit of pencil shavings in the nose and stuffed the rest with wool stuffing (hair and wool are supposed to be good because, along with the other stuffings mentioned, they are supposed to help keep your pins and needles sharp). Pencil shavings weren’t as ideal a choice of stuffing as I’d hoped: I couldn’t manage to stuff the mice without getting graphite dust on the outside of the pincushions. It isn’t noticible on the brown mouse, but it is on the white with polka dots mouse. The polka dot mouse was supposed to be a gift, but she was too dirty to give away so I gave away my other brown mouse instead.
After sewing, I whipstitched the opening. I sewed little floss whiskers on the brown mice; Here’s a better look:
