Stuffed mouse

Stuffed Mouse Sewing Pattern by Caroline Lefebvre

This downloadable PDF sewing pattern by independent designer Caroline Lefebvre guides you through creating an adorable stuffed mouse toy, known in French as a toutou souris. Rated as an intermediate sewing project, this pattern is ideal for crafters who are comfortable with a sewing machine and basic hand-sewing techniques, and who are ready to tackle a three-dimensional stuffed toy with multiple pattern pieces and assembly steps.

What You Will Make

The finished project is a soft stuffed mouse complete with a rounded head, body, arms, ears, a sewn tail, and an embroidered face featuring eyes, a nose, a mouth, and charming thread moustaches. The design has a whimsical, friendly character that makes it a wonderful handmade gift for children or a decorative keepsake.

Materials Required

• Main fabric: 1/2 yard or a fat quarter of medium-weight fabric. The designer, Caroline Lefebvre, recommends polar fleece or cotton fleece as her preferred choices for stuffed toys.
• Tail fabric: A small piece measuring 9 inches by 2 inches in a coordinating or matching fabric.
• Thread: Matching sewing thread, embroidery thread for the face details, and white sewing thread specifically for the moustaches.
• Polyfill stuffing to fill the body, head, arms, and legs.

Tools and Notions

• Sewing machine
• Hand sewing needle and embroidery needle
• Fabric pen or marker for tracing pattern pieces
• Scissors and pins
• A stiff straw and skewer (helpful for turning the narrow tail right-side out)

Pattern Pieces and Cutting

The PDF pattern includes several clearly marked pieces: Body, Front Head, Back Head, Ear (cut twice), Arm (cut twice), and Tail. All pattern pieces are printed at 100% scale and include a 1/4-inch seam allowance throughout. Alignment marks such as points A, B, and C are clearly indicated on the pattern pieces to guide precise assembly.

Fabric is folded face to face (right sides together) for most pieces. The Back Head is cut from a single open layer of fabric. The Tail fabric is cut separately from the accent fabric.

Sewing Techniques Used

• Machine sewing with 1/4-inch seam allowances for the main body construction
• Fabric-specific ear construction: For non-fraying fabrics such as fleece or knit, ears are placed back to back, sewn on the front side, and seam allowances are trimmed to approximately 1/8 inch. For woven fabrics that fray, ears are sewn front to front and then turned right-side out.
• Notching between the legs to allow smooth turning of curved seams
• Turning narrow tubes using a stiff straw and skewer — a practical technique for achieving a neatly turned tail
• Selective filling — arms and legs are stuffed only to approximately 3/4 inch from the top, leaving the tops flat for easier attachment and natural posing
• Hand sewing to attach the finished head to the body
• Embroidery for the eyes, nose, and mouth using embroidery thread
• Thread moustache technique: Six pieces of white sewing thread, each 8 inches long, are threaded together through an embroidery needle, stitched through the tip of the nose, and secured with a double knot before trimming to the desired moustache length

Assembly Overview

Construction begins with sewing the individual body parts — the body, front head, arms, and tail — before assembly. The