It’s my cat Maui’s third birthday and I wanted to make him something special…

I had this brown patterned fabric in my stash, and the pattern was just mouse sized… I came up with this catnip-filled mouse, with a string tail, felt ears, and embroidered eyes and nose. I know it was a lot of work just for a cat toy (those ears won’t last for long!), but I think it’s just adorable.

And, most importantly, the birthday boy loves it:

Yes, I’m a Brit, and to me they are *knickers*, not panties 🙂 

My friend Allison and I decided to get together for an afternoon of crafty goodness and we thought the OneHourCraft sexy Valentine’s Day string panties tutorial would be a good place to start.

After we had spent a while giggling and examining animal prints in the fabric store, we settled on a subtle black floral pattern, with some fancy black elastic and purpley red ribbon ties.

We modified the pattern template because it looked a little too small (aka revealing) for us, and then we pinned and sewed and pinned and sewed and… no, this was not a “one hour” craft for us! And my poor hubby had to studiously avoid listening to us discussing underwear all afternoon. But it was so much fun – I can see why people are starting up craft groups all over the place now; crafting with a friend is a very different experience to crafting by yourself.

And, eventually, look what we made (click to supersize): 

Mine are the ones on the left

They ended up looking really good – I think we were both a little surprised by how well they turned out.

Thanks Allison – we’ll have to do it again some time! 

Q: What do you get when you add:

• Fabric
• Freezer paper
• Scalpel
• Fabric paint
• Foam brush? 

A: My first freezer paper stencil!

(Don’t know what a freezer paper stencil is? Angry Chicken explains it best.)

I love it – the edges came out really crisply, and I dried the paint with my hairdryer between coats so it only took about 10 mins from ironing on the stencil to peeling it off again. This is (hopefully) going to be a handbag, although I haven’t even designed the bag yet, so it could be a little while before it’s finished.

I predict more stencilling in my future…