Sneak Peak at My Idea for a Rat Zippered Pouch

Blue Kitty Cat Pouch

A Quick little project

A little zippered pouch with a hand embroidered kitty cat face and blue gingham ears.  It's about 5" x 4".

 My inspiration is from a free Japanese tutorial which is from the Purring Twisting blog (at least, that's what the translation says).  I drafted my own pattern because I thought I was going to be making a different size, but my little pouch is essentially 12 cm which is what the original tutorial is.

Oops I didn't rotate this photo.  Here, the front has already been embroidered and I've attached the ears.  They just need a trimming.  I wasn't following the original instructions as they direct you to cut the ears to size from the pattern and then, sew the ears onto the face.

Here the front has the ears trimmed, and it is already looking quite cute.

These last two photos are of my fabric choices.  The one on the left has the zipper and the lining.

After, the front piece was all sewed together, I sandwiched the whole thing together with its zipper and turned it into a pouch.  I'm quite pleased.  If I make this again, I would adjust the pattern.  The original's rounded bottom makes it cuter.   However, I'm quite pleased with the little kitty cat pouch that I made.

FOUND TOY - Noah's Ark Now Infested with Rats

Here's Walternate modelling his new "hide."  They really like Noah's ark.  There's several large windows which even a fatty rat can squeeze through.  The roof is hinged which is perfect for extracting lazy boys.  Also, it's fairly easy to clean as you can easily unscrew the house portion from the boat portion.

Yesterday, the boys had piled all of their blankies to the roof of the ark, and today, they have removed all except a few blankies from the floor.  Sometimes, they just can't make interior decoration decisions.

Oh, beware of picking the ark up by its handle and putting it on the floor.  I did that yesterday hoping that Walternate would stay inside as I got Smaug out, but no, he decided he would go for a walk.  Sigh.  All of my other rats are scared of the floor, but not Walternate.  He loves going for walks.

How can you find a Noah's Ark for your rats?

Sorry, the bad news is that this is a vintage Noah's Ark.  The new Fisher Price Noah's Arks aren't as convenient for rats.  So, the easiest place to find it is on ebay.  What I did of course was stumble upon it at a garage sale for a dollar.

Lots of Hamsters at Mainely Rat Rescue as well as rats, of course

Mainely Rat Rescue has several fall events occurring, but also, they have had a population explosion of hamsters.

So, they've been sharing some absolutely darling hamster YouTube videos on their Facebook page, and I just had to share the goodness.

I must say... hamster pouches are AMAZING.  I'm impressed when one of my rats successfully stuffs four chocolate chips in his mouth.  This is WAY beyond that.

Hampton the Hamster:  "Thank God I'm a Country Boy"

And, the good ole "Hamster Dance" - Hampton the Hamster.

Super Hammock

I haven't put a super hammock in our cage in several months.  And, so for my current mischief, this is a new experience.  And, they really really love it.  None of them had any difficulty figuring out how to get in and out of the super hammock.

Here's a photo of my first ever super hammock.

 This super hammock is simply a pillow sham.  So, it's doubly cool because my rats could hang out inside the super hammock.

 Here's one of my early pieced hammocks along with my pieced super hammock which you will see in the next photo in the cage.

The trick with super hammocks that are as large as an entire critter nation floor is to make them out of woven fabric.  They sag and stretch a heck of a lot.  So, a woven fabric reduces the sag somewhat.  But, still we try to hang them as taut as we can.