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November 19, 2005

Ratical

awhile ago, i made a surprise super item for my boyfriend, and i wasn't gonna post about it until sometime next week, but since im not good at hiding things, he saw it, i spilled my beans, and the whole surprise effect is definitely no longer existent. so! i guess i can post!

i work and research in a rat lab, and all the time i'm having rat stories and rat allergies and rat everything pretty much, and since my boyfriend will continually remind me of his disgust for rats (he obviously hasnt ever hung out with them), i decided to begin step one of coyly warming his heart to all the fuzzy little buddies out there by making him his own rat!

to make it, i used lion brand sueded yarn (i wanted to use white, but i had brown on hand and was too anxious to get started to wait around until the next time i went to the store) the face is pretty much a cone. for the tip of it though, i cast off half of it a row early, and then put the remaining nose into a point. then i got a baby clothes-pin (im talking like about an inch long) and managed to wrap the point over half of the clothes-pin, so pretty much the clothes-pin is inside the cone gripping on the tip. the i sewed the clothespin in place the best i could. this pretty much just made it so my little ratty can eat things like cheese and floppy disks. i used size three needles for the whole thing to keep the stitches compact. and the body (the rat was two pieces) was like a tube that got bigger where rats get bigger, like the arching back. as i made the body, i would add stitches and hold them out (paper clips are so versatile), pretty much as kind of ovalish designs with no bottoms so i could have openings on the bottom to make feet. when i was done with the body, i knitted the added on stitches to make legs. pretty much, i just kept decreasing the sides and tried to have the middle extend down as long as i could. then i made little feet and sewed them on. it didnt take very long, and if anyone tries it, these kind-of directions will probably make more sense. or just ask me. the only thing i would change, is that the tail is in the middle of the body, not like on the ground, so when decreasing the body, i should have left the middle of the back and middle of the bottom to connect more towards the bottom. ok, im not making sense anymore, so here's the multi-angle picture:

the desicription is super long because i like it so much! oh! i also filled it with a mix of dried beans and poly-fill to make it feel kinda real. i got a good laugh because real rats are filled with fiber, and this one is too! ha.

Posted by SQ at November 19, 2005 3:49 PM