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Moustrong with the poster.
My friend Florence playing with Moustrong~
In this project, I intended to make a toy mouse for my friend since she told me that she wanted a companion toy mouse she can hug while sleeping. I made the toy according to her demands of its size and outlook. My friend also told me the story about her special love for mouse and hamster creatures, that was because she used to have a crush who looked really like a mouse and she had happy memories with him. This story made me feel that my friend is a cute person with full emotions, so I decided to make the style of the toy mouse cute as well. Moreover and unluckily, my friend is now struggling with an unsatisfying relationship, so I really want to use this toy mouse as something that can cheer her up and give her strength, bringing my love and care to her and presenting as a symbol of our friendship and companionship. My friend likes to hug soft stuffed toys while sleeping, so this toy is super soft so that she can comfortably hug it when she sleeps. Also, I hope my friend can always have sweet dreams with the toy mouse and gain strength and happiness after a night of sound sleeping.
For the play value of my toy, I think the most distinct one is it presents as an emotional support for the player, and the player can get very unique and exclusive experience while playing with it. However, as Cas Holman mentioned in the documentary, the play value is not limited to emotional ones only. I think this is also where I can improve my toy. I remembered the emphasis of play value can also be on how the toy arouses creativity and even reproduction, which I think I can try to improve in this way if I have more time. However in this project, I spent most of the time in practicing my sewing skill and put the main focus on making the toy mouse itself, so this might be a pity for me. Initially, I also thought of making clothes for the toy mouse, and also buying earrings and doing piercing for it so that my friend can decorate it in ways she likes, as she also mentioned that she enjoyed the process where she could change clothes for her Barbie dolls when she was little. If I could succeed in achieving these aims (I failed when trying to do crochet hooks for making the clothes, and it was also too late when I had the idea of buying earrings for it), I think the play value of the toy would be richer. But still, my friend was so happy when she first saw the final version of the toy since no one had ever made her a toy, and I felt that at least my toy successfully fulfilled its emotional value and brought happiness to my friend, which is also my top prior aim, and this also made me so satisfied with my project.
For what I've learnt, the biggest part undoubtedly is about all the techniques to make a stuffed soft toy. I tried to combine all what I learnt before together, from the sewing technique to the needle felting to the crochet hooks. I found that I'm much more familiar with the sewing machine and the invisible stitches, which I used to think are very hard for me (lots of practice really make a large difference!!). What's more, even if I encountered many difficulties and obstacles while making the toy, just thinking of it was for my friend and I wouldn't want to let her down, I felt that I would get my energy back:) The feelings towards the toy you are making are also important and what make your toy unique! Also, I remembered Andy mentioned that there ought to be something to make my toy unique since it has the special aim that is a gift from me for my friend. While looking back on the feelings and emotions I attached to my toy when making it, and how my friend perceived the toy as a symbol of our friendship and felt so happy, I think this value is also fulfilled, which I feel so glad.
For those key steps of making the toy mouse...
I first made a sketch of the rough outline of the ideal shape of the mouse, and cut the fabric out according to the shape. It was not an easy step since I often cut the shape too small to filp inside out, or too big, or asymmetric.
Lots of failed and abandoned versions.
After separately made the different parts of the mouse (the head and the body), I used invisible stitches to sew them together. The ears are attached to the head through invisible stitches, and this is extremely hard because the ears are too small.
Back stitches are used to sew the back part of the ear.
The eyes are also attached to the toy by sewing and I learnt this technique from tutorials online.
The tail is made from the most basic type of crochet hooks.
The nose is made from needle felting.
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