Nipmice, Your Cat Will Love Them

Nipmice are proudly made in the USA by a demented cat lady trying to find a natural alternative for fiber stuffed made with who knows what mice from China found in the Dollar and Pet stores.

Not really.

Once upon a time, a Druid witch was looking for some yarn to make protection mojo bags. She saw a HUGE skein of red, black and white all cotton yarn and thought that it was perfect. Red works for all mojo bags and protection from crazy people. Black absorbs all energy and white reflects all energy so with the proper contents, these babies would work for all types of psychic attack.

So, she bought it. She took it home. She started crocheting a mojo bag and half way through discovered this was the most god awful looking piece of crochet in the known universe. It was coyote (no offense to the trickster god intended) ugly.

So instead of a Mojo Bag, she just tied it off halfway though and tossed it on the bed. Within minutes it has disappeared and instead of saying good riddance to bad crocheting, she went to find it. It took a week or two and was finally found in a cat's stash.

She began to watch and discovered the cats were passing it between themselves as a treasured object. Thus, she made another one on a night when she couldn't sleep. It was taken within minutes, thrown, chewed, loved and hidden. So, she made another one. You see, she had about a pound of this god awful colored yarn to get rid of and no ideas but these weird shaped creatures she now named nipmice though they had no catnip in them. The latest version has a pinch of nip in them.

Nipmice are often created in the wee hours of the morning when she can't sleep with an audience of cats. Often, it is a contest to see whether she can tie off the nipmouse before the cat takes it. As you can see, this nipmouse barely survived the photography session. We have no idea why the cats love them. It's a cat thing.

Since there is no chance of ever managing to get one made and shipped, here are the instructions to make your own. The Druid is allergic to wool so she uses cotton yarn.

If you can single crochet, you can make a nip mouse. Keep in mind the cat doesn't care what it looks like, they just love them. Hook size and gauge are not important. I make a chain of 5 and join the last and first stitch. Chain 1 and single crochet in every stitch until I have about 5 single crochets. Now comes the choice and just winging it is possible at every point but if you obsessive, there are several versions. If you want a head on the mouse, place 2 single crochets in every stitch making 10 then reduce by one making 5. Now you have a head. Single crochet 5 more stitches and go to making the body. Or you can just skip to this step. If you really want the typical mouse body, single crochet in 2 stitches and then increase one stitch in the remaining 3 making 8 stitches. Continue following this pattern until the mouse is the size you want and stitch the back end together leaving a long string end for a tail. I consider the front string to be a tongue. Otherwise, increase as you feel the need and then when the mouse is long enough start decreasing until you have one stitch and tie off. That is how most of mine are made.

The best time to insert some catnip is when you are at the widest part of the mouse. Warning, this can cause loss of fingers, loss of mouse and theft of the bag of catnip. Managing to actually get the catnip into the mouse may require locking yourself in the bathroom with it after spending an hour ejecting all cats from the premises. Finish the mouse in the locked room or you will learn the fine art of crocheting with a cat attached to the piece you making. A sixteen pound cat attached to your nipmouse makes turning your work difficult.

Good luck.