Happy Dance for a Mousie in a Housie

Just Nan brought out the Haunted Autumn Mouse in a House in 2017 and I just had to have one.  These kits are very limited edition and once they are gone, they are gone.

I started stitching for Dark October last year and completed the mouse, both floor parts and the outline of one wall:

Mouse stitched on 32 count Cognac linen

Carpet Square stitched on 32 count Antique Ivory linen

Base of the House stitched on 32 count Antique Ivory linen

Apart from 30 minutes for the Longest Day SAL in July, that was it until this October.  The project came up several times in the Tiny Decisions app and by WIPocalypse looked like this:

Once Dark October was over I decided to make this my first Focus for a Finish piece and stitched on it every day.  I finished the stitching on 10th November and spent the 11th and 12th fully finishing it.  First I used iron-on interfacing on the backs of all the house pieces and then sewed the two floor pieces together with a card square inbetween to give them stiffness.  After that I cut out and sewed triangles of felt to the back of each of the walls.  The ribbon was sandwiched between and sewed in at the top.  

By the end of Sunday 11th this is what I had:

Each of those triangles had to be stitched to the floor piece using the whip stitch to hold them in place.  Once the four walls are attached you tie the ribbons into bows to hold the whole piece together:

When you untie the ribbons, the walls flatten and you can see the little mousie in the housie!

Close-up of Mouse:

I made a little video film of the whole thing just to show you how it all works, and how tiny the mouse is!  Unfortunately it was too long to upload so we had to break it into two pieces.  The first video shows the house and the second shows the mouse ending with it balanced on my finger so you can see the scale.

🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎅🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄

Finally, it's time to sign up for the Advent Calendar  Blog Hop!  For this hop, each participant is allocated a day in December to make their post on.  They will show something they have stitched on a Christmas theme and answer the topic question I set.  I then copy their photo onto my blog post in the style of an Advent Calendar.

So if you'd like to join in, please leave a comment or send me an email.  Let me know if there is a date you would particularly like or one you'd like to avoid.  I will be in touch towards the end of the month!

Here is a link to last year's so you can see how it works:

2017-online-advent-calendar