Roméo Mouse Rattle

My youngest granddaughter was born January 11. After having gotten both vaccination doses, I am finally going to get to meet her in person in four weeks. I wanted to bring her a hand made gift, appropriate for a then twelve week old so I ordered this mouse rattle kit from a French company Renaissance Ribbons. These kits are made of soft polyester velvet on a sturdy rubberized backing. The fabric is so soft the toys are awesome to the touch; but the fabric is also so sturdy, the toys are awful to turn right side out after sewing. But each is worth the effort and I sew them up it out of love (and determination) time and time again. The following posts describe the animal critters I have made in the past: two cats 4/28/2018, two rabbits 4/9/2020, three kittens 7/13/2020, and six foxes 1/14/2021. This mouse kit was slightly specialized in that it included a rattle and a long tail.

I opened the package and laid out all the contents – one long strip of velvet printed with body and ears, a white thin disk rattle, and a bright green tubular tail. I myself had some plastic squeakers so I decided I would enable this mouse to squeak as well as rattle. 

Here are closeups of the mouse both awake and asleep with the signage declaring his name Roméo and the name of his designer, odille baillouel.

I cut out all the ears and body components and displayed them beside the extras of the tube tail, disk rattle, and pliable squeaker. His lime green tail and heart-shaped cheese make me smile.

Finished Roméo measure 5" tall. Awake and asleep photos of the assembled mouse follow. On second thought since he is nibbling on his cheese with his eyes closed, perhaps that is an expression of bliss rather than napping. Or maybe he is just hugging it to his chest while he dreams. Roméo's tummy squeaks and his head rattles. This was my logical choice for noise generator placement while I was stuffing him. When you get confused don't you feel like your brain is rattled and when you are hungry doesn't your tummy make noises?

I checked the Google translator to be certain the French "souriceau" translated to "mouse" in English. Quite by accident I also released on a translation to Italian where "souriceau" is "topo". This immediately made me think back to my childhood and the Ed Sullivan variety show where a popular guest was the mouse puppet Topo Gigio.

When people talk about The Ed Sullivan Show the conversation almost always reverts back to Elvis Presley’s 1956 appearance watched by 60 million viewers, The Beatles first US live television performance on February 9, 1964 and, shockingly enough, the little Italian mouse named Topo Gigio.

I hope Roméo is at least partially as entertaining to little Irene as Topo Gigio was to many television viewers. In my opinion Roméo turned out equally cute.