DIY Catnip Toy Mice

I have a problem shelling out a ton of money on toys and accessories for my cat. It’s not that I’m a horrible owner, it’s just that they are SO overpriced, and to be honest, I think my cats favourite toy is a balled up receipt. That’s not to say that my cat doesn’t have any real toys, it’s just that I prefer to make them for her instead of buying them. My latest foray into cat toy creation came in the form of these catnip toy mice. I’ve always been an avid knitter, so I decided to use those skills in a way that they would benefit my cat. So, in honour of my cat Severus’ birthday yesterday, I thought I should post these cute little cat toys that I made for her.

They’re super easy to make, and don’t require a ton of supplies as long as you have some spare yarn, cotton batting and knitting needles already.

I started out with the first catnip toy mouse and ended up making one that was WAY too big, but she likes it anyways.

For the rest of the mice, I used a small ball of crimson yarn (only a little bigger than a ping pong ball) that I had left over from making a knit headband. To make these mice, I cast on with either 24 or 18 stitches (depending on how big you want the mouse to be). No matter how big you want the mouse to be, you do have to make sure that you cast on with an even number of stitches.

I used the stockinette stitch to achieve the knit appearance of the mouse. In other words, knit one row, pearl the next row.

In order to achieve a triangle like shape, start by casting on, then knit one foundation row and then when you go to pearl your next row, knit the first two stitches together. Continue pearling down the row until you reach the last two stitches. Pearl the last two stitches together. Continue knitting and pearling each alternate row, making sure that each time you pearl a row, you will be pearling the first two stitches together and then finishing by pearling the last two stitches together.  Make sure that when you get down to your last stitch, you cast off and leave a large length of yarn. You will be using this to sew the seam together, as well as make ears and a tail. When you are done, you should have something that looks like this: 

After you have sewn the seam together, you should be left with a cone. You will then fill this cone first with cotton batting, then with some cat nip, and will then finish with some more cotton batting. Alternately, you can try to wrap the catnip in the cotton batting and then stuff it in to ensure that the catnip doesn’t start coming out through the knitting. Your empty and stuffed cone should look like this:

In the above picture, I have started to use the length of yarn that we sewed the seam up with to close the opening and seal the cotton batting inside. Once you have fully closed the opening, take your needle and insert it through the back until it comes out on the side. Then you want to start looping it through the knitting in order make a circular shape that resembles ears. Each time you loop the yarn through, make sure that it is a little looser so that the ears can continue to grow in size. Repeat on the other side so that your mouse has two ears. When you are done, stick the needle through the knitting towards the back end of the mouse. Here you will tie off your yarn. You can tie it in a loop if you want your mouse to have a tail with more than one string of yarn. With some of the mice, I ended up with 3 pieces of yarn which I then braided together to form a tail. Here are how my finished catnip toy mice turned out:

You could even use a bit of extra yarn to put whiskers on them if you wanted!

This is Severus being all kinds of cute yesterday. God she’s so precious. Look at that little face.

I think its great that you can make these basically for free, and your cat will be just as happy with them as any store bought toy.

What do you think of my DIY Catnip toy mice? Will you try and make them for your cat? Let me know!

xo, tess.