Don’t have any pet rats right now, so this little guy will have to do.

3/5/14 - Finally finished knitting and assembled him. I’m planning on starching and trimming his whiskers.

3/6/15 - I can’t guarantee that this is the best method of starching, but this is what I did for my little guy’s whiskers:

The whiskers themselves are individual plies of the yarn I’d used (it comes apart easily).

I made a starch mixture of approximately 1/2 Tbl cornstarch mixed with a tablespoon or two of water, and poured it into 1/2 c boiling water (it thickened up immediately). I then continued to boil it until it was fairly clear (this ended up being around a minute in the microwave -- the mixture boiled up and would have overflowed my 2c measuring cup if I didn’t keep stopping and stirring it every 10 sec or so).

Once the starch mixture cooled, I took a tiny bit on my fingers and worked it into a couple of his whiskers, then laid the whiskers over a form made of rolled paper that created a gentle arch in the whiskers. I made sure the whiskers were very straight and left them to dry for a couple of hours, then peeled them off the paper (wax paper may have been more effective) and trimmed them to length. I ended up doing the whiskers in a couple of layers from top to bottom, so that the curves and angles were slightly different.

The end product is just stiff enough to hold its shape, but flexible that I can easily manipulate the whiskers without damaging them. I think it came out quite realistically.