Can you help me with myTwiddle Muff?

[KurriKurri]

I am going to have a go at making one of these twiddle muffs (who thought of that name????)fro my dad who has alzheimers. I'll be doing one similar to the tartan one, not an animal.

So do you think it looks reasonably easy? - any hints or suggestions as to how to go about it gratefully received.

Should I pad it with thick wadding or toy stuffing?

Also any suggestions about what to attach to it for him to fiddle with, I'll do beads and a little ball, but some of it just seems to be ribbons, I'd like something a bit more interesting.

Hi I can't really advise about making it because I am crap at crafting.

But I used to work ina deoendancy unit for dementia and alzheimers affected people and things liek this were a big hit, another thing that people seemed to like were those little bean bags that you used to use in PE at school and crinkly textures and noises because it is a sharp sound it grabs attention.

Maybe you could include something like that on it and how about one of those clear keyrings with a photo of soemthing familiar to him?

We had a resident who had a kids sensory hedgehog toy with a keyring looped through witha photo of a Shell truck in it because he used to drive them years ago. Although he did'nt really 'get' his surroundings every now and again he would point to the keyring and say Shell :)

thank you mamadiva - those are great ideas, I would never have thought of the key ring photo - he will love that, and a little bean bag - they have them at his day centre.

He is always fiddling about with stuff, and he has some things like a rubiks cube etc. - just for turning it round. He's quite advanced so things to entertain and occupy him are getting a bit more limited now

Sorry to hear that Kurri :(

The only experience I had was of other people's relatives but I found that incredibly hard for a long time, so can't imagine how it must feel to see your dad.

Are you maaking the twiddle muff in the shape of an animal?

How about little mirror type sequin or something to reflect light, might also be an idea too.

That's a great idea too he would like that - he's interested in reflection and light (he used to be a physicist).

I asked mum and she thought he'd prefer a plain one (although I think the animal ones are rather nice - but they might be slightly beyond my capabilities!)

It is very hard -it's a cruel disease.

I'm not familiar with these Kurri but I think it would depend on what you want the filling to "do" and how, er firm the item needs to be. Toy stuffing would possibly move around and go into clumps unless you use a lot. Whereas the wadding would stay in place and be a bit more flexible.

I have retyped this loads and it still comes out sounding like a "carry on" film!

at carry on film vocab. starfish.

I was thinking the same thing about toy stuffing - so I'm glad you've confirmed my thoughts I think it needs to be soft enough for him to put his hands in and feel cosy, but firm enough to support all the bits and bobs.

Must add - I've never seen a real one, so am just going by the picture.

maybe do layers of wadding with some stiff interfacing in the middle? Possibly even that really thick stuff for curtain pelmets? I imagine that you would need to sew a sleeve and then slide the wadding & interfacing into it. Otherwise you would have a big seam. Although you could bind the seam I suppose.

Thank you SW - I was thinking along the lines of a sleeve shape, then a smaller sleeve inside with wadding layers in between the inner and outer sleeve, and then sew up the two ends. I think interfacing is a good idea, I have some fairly heavyweight stuff which I will try.

KK what a great idea..I've been looking at all the pics trying to figure it all out.

It looks like a rectangle of fleece top and bottom with I'd say a medium wadding..

You could sew all the layers together (with a gap for turning, turn through and hand sew the gap closed. It might be easier to join the smaller ends together than sew layers of sleeves over each other.

You could sew a ribbon over one end with loops on to put split rings on (key ring things)then you could hang anything off these perhaps?

Thank you Kryshees, I am going to get started on it this weekend and every one's come up with some great ideas. The loops and split ring thing could work really well I think - I could have a few interchangeable dangly bits so they could be swapped for variety.

I hope I don't make a total hash of it because think he'll really like it and it is very expensive for the real thing.

Once I've done it - I'll try to put a picture up

ooo yes pleas to pics.

Was thinking about the rectangle method....i you went with the ribbon/loops/split ring idea....you could always sew that ribbon over the join of the short ends of the rectangle (if it will fit on your machine that way)

Then it would hide the join too. Magic!