I Needle Felted Every Pet I've Ever Loved — And Now They All Live Together on My Shelf

The first one was a mistake. I was trying to make a felted mouse for a friend's baby and it came out looking exactly like the tabby I'd had as a teenager — same broken ear, same slightly disappointed expression.

I made her properly the following weekend. Then the dog. Then the rabbit I had at university, and the black cat who only ever liked one person in the house.

Nine animals, nineteen years

It took two years to work through them. Some I could felt from memory. For others I had to dig through boxes of printed photographs, which is its own kind of afternoon.

The hardest was not the oldest. It was the one who had died most recently, because I still knew exactly what she felt like, and wool is not fur.

Why we still send draft photos

That gap between memory and material is why every commission we take gets a draft photo before it is finished. You are the only person who knows whether we got it right.

Nine out of ten customers reply with 'perfect'. The tenth tells us the muzzle is too dark, and they are always correct.