The harvest mouse is Britain’s smallest mammal; an adult weighs little more than a two pence coin. They have a prehensile tail that can be used as a fifth limb, advantageous as they build a spherical nest above the ground, supported on tall grasses and cereal crops. This is a pattern to make a decorative or toy harvest mouse in a nest. It uses oddments and scraps of yarn, both for the mouse and nest, so is a good stash buster.

The mice when knitted in 4 ply yarns on 2mm needles are about 6 cm long but you could increase the size to make a bigger mouse, as a cat toy for example.

The nest is about 7.5 cm diameter and 7 cm depth when knitted on 3 mm needles. Again the size could easily be increased by knitting with thicker wool on larger needles.

The wool I have used is listed below but any combo of left over yarn and the appropriate sized needles would work:

Oddment of brown 4 ply wool, eg Eden Cottage Milburn in Autumn Fields
Oddment of white or ecru 4 ply wool, eg Eden Cottage Milburn in Natural
Oddment of tweedy brown wool for nest (or two contrasting 4 ply yarns held together if the former is unavailable) eg Rowan felted tweed, shade 190 (stone)
Scraps of brown, drab or olive green, and/or grassy green yarns for the nest (optional)
2 mm straight needles
3 mm straight needles
2 mm double pointed needles (2 only needed for the tail)
stitch markers (optional)
polyester toy stuffing
eyes, either black seed beads or black embroidery thread
black sewing thread and sewing needle if using seed beads
tapestry needles of a suitable size for the yarns/thread used