Hello crafters!

This one is for all of the cat parents out there! I personally am a dog mother but I have two cat nephews that are so adorable 🙂 I’m so excited about this project because it is very quick to whip up and it is also a great way to use up yarn scraps.

Side note, if you have an absurd amount of yarn scraps and want to connect them to make your own unique yarn ball, check out my scrap yarn ball tutorial to help you with that 🙂

Let’s get started!

Supplies needed to make your catnip mouse

• Caron Simply Soft in “Grey Heather”
• 5mm hook
• Yarn scraps (for tail)
• Polyfil or other stuffing (see stuffing section below)
• Mini pompoms
• Yarn needle
• Very small amounts of pink and black yarn or thread for the eye and nose detail

Stuffing your catnip mouse

Obviously if you want your catnip mouse to contain catnip you will need to mix some in with your stuffing! You can use regular polyfil to stuff your mouse but this is also a great oppourtunity to be creative. I used leftover yarn scraps to stuff mine. Since these catnip mice are so tiny they don’t need much to fill them up 🙂

I also have some catnip growing in my garden which is perfect for this project (homemade and homegrown, doesn’t get better than that!)

Crochet catnip mouse pattern

Ears

*Make 2*

• Make a magic circle with a long tail (so that you can sew it onto your mouse)
• 1sc, 1hdc, 1dc, 1hc, 1sc into magic circle
• Close magic circle and slip stitch into the first sc stitch

Tail

The tail of your mouse is made with a few different strings. You can definitely get creative here with whatever you have on hand! I used mini pompoms threaded onto yarn, a strand of just chain stitches and a curly cue 🙂

To make the curly tail:

Chain 50. Turn and single crochet 3 into each stitch across.

Mouse

• Each round ends with a slip stitch into the first stitch of the round.
• Each round begins with a chain1. This does not count as a stitch.

Make magic circle. 6 single crochet into circle. Close circle. Join with slip stitch to first stitch.

2. 2 sc into each stitch around (12)

3. 1 sc, 2sc in next (18)

4. 2sc, 2sc in next (24)

5. sc in each stitch around (24)

6. sc in each stitch around (24)

7. sc in each stitch around (24) *At this point, attach the tail pieces. Using your yarn needle, thread all of your tail ends into the mouse butt.

Turn the mouse inside out and tie all of your ends into a knot.

Turn your mouse right side out and continue on with round 8!

8. 2sc, sc2tog (18)

9. sc in each stitch around (18)

10. 1sc, sc2tog (12)

11. sc in each stitch around (12) *At this point you can attach the ears. Pull the thread of each ear through to the inside of the mouse. Tie the ends of the two ears together in a knot. Leave the excess yarn poking out of the front of your mouse because we will use that for the whiskers!

12. Sc2tog around (6)

Tie off, leaving long tail. Stuff your mouse with your preferred stuffing (and your catnip). Using a yarn needle, weave through all six stitches and pull closed. Make sure that the end strings from your ears are coming out of the mouse before you tighten the hole closed.

Details

At this point you should have something that looks like this:

Now for the eye and nose detail!

To make the eyes simply attach a strand of black yarn in each of the spots where you would like each of your eyes to be and tie a knot for each eye.

For some reason this picture give me creeps!

Then use a yarn needle or small crochet hook to pull the extra ends inside the mouse.

To finish off the nose I used a lightweight pink baby yarn. Using a needle, thread the pink yarn around the grey strands that you left poking out of your mouse. Continue to sew around the “whiskers” until you have a mouse nose!

I weaved my yarn around about six times and was satisfied with the look 🙂 Trim whiskers to desired length.

That’s all there is to it! If you feel like you need to spoil your cat just a little bit more you can check out my cat hammock tutorial 🙂

I would love to see your questions, comments (and cute cat pictures!) below.

Happy crafting!