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<\/p>\nI like rats.\u00a0 I really do.\u00a0 Not the wild ones that overpopulate DC and other urban areas and cause both men and women to shriek out loud and climb on chairs.\u00a0 But I like pet rats and I adore a well made stuffed rat.
\nI purchased a rat made by Out of the Woods Originals at a bear show several years ago.\u00a0 One became two, then three and I had a mini collection.\u00a0 Then I wanted to design and create my own rat.<\/p>\n
My first attempt was pretty good until I got a look at the body shape.\u00a0 What is that?<\/p>\n
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Kind of triangular there, maybe?\u00a0 This is where the sketch doesn’t quite translate into what I had in mind.\u00a0 I made a few changes to the body pattern and I had Edgar.\u00a0 (Edgar now lives with a collector in CA.)<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.elizabethtaylorstudio.com\/edgar1.jpg\")
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Much better.\u00a0 Rounded belly, not triangular.\u00a0 Adding some depth with color around the eyes and ears helps with defining the character.\u00a0 Oh, and the hat\u00a0 – well, the hat makes the rat!<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.elizabethtaylorstudio.com\/edgar2.jpg\")
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But in the back of my mind, there was one rat still not created.\u00a0 My sister Tricia wanted a rat in red sneakers.\u00a0 She had a name for him to0 – Vermincelli.\u00a0 A gourmand of a rat, if you will.\u00a0 But finding red sneakers to fit a rat isn’t easy and the project seemed to be continually on hold.\u00a0 Until the past January, when I walked down an aisle at IDEX in Orlando and saw a pair of small red sneakers.\u00a0 Made by Jaime Show for a 16″ fashion doll, I wondered if they might really work. Back home in the studio, I pulled out the patterns for the rat.\u00a0 Now, Edgar was about 11″ tall – and the feet were way too big for these shoes.\u00a0 So, back to the drawing board to design a smaller rat.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.elizabethtaylorstudio.com\/vermincelli3.jpg\")
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Yes, I think that will work just fine.\u00a0 And maybe a few props for the photo shoot? Tricia is quite pleased with her rat.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.elizabethtaylorstudio.com\/vermincelli2.jpg\")
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The rats continue to multiply, as rats will do.\u00a0 The newest is Nigel, a rat who is rather pleasant, as rats go.\u00a0 He is a small rat, about 7″ tall.\u00a0 He will soon be available in my etsy store<\/a>.<\/p>\n And that, as they say, is that.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I like rats.\u00a0 I really do.\u00a0 Not the wild ones that overpopulate DC and other urban areas and cause both men and women to shriek out loud and climb on chairs.\u00a0 But I like pet rats and I adore a … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.elizabethtaylorstudio.com\/nigel1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.elizabethtaylorstudio.com\/nigel2.jpg\")
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