Bundled Penguin Felted Wool Charm

$22.00 USD

Design Mustard Dot Pink Beanie Red Beanie Yellow Beanie Star

3.25" W × 4.75" H × 2.5" D

100% New Zealand Wool
Open pasture, naturally soft, cleanly spun, and extraordinarily resilient.
Individually Hand-Sculpted
Wet-felted and needle-detailed so no two pieces are identical.
Naturally Fresh & Durable
Breathable, odor-resistant, and easy to spot clean.

Description

A felted penguin dressed for weather he is already built for. That is the joke, and it is the whole charm of him.

The body is felted solid in the round — a slate grey back wrapping a white front, two stubby flippers at the sides and two orange feet at the base. There is no seam anywhere on him, front or back, because he was never two pieces sewn together.

His face is built in layers rather than drawn on. Two white brow patches sit proud of the grey, and a small cone of a beak stands out from between them, so the face has real depth when the light moves across it.

Each one wears a beanie pulled down over the head, with a scarf wrapped at the neck and the tail left hanging loose.

A plaited loop at the crown. He hangs from a tree, a hook, a shelf edge, a mirror or a bag.

Mustard Dot — an ochre beanie with two cream pompoms at the crown and a matching scarf, both scattered with raised cream bobbles, plus a pair of blue mittens.

Pink Beanie — a dusty pink beanie with a white pompom and a bright yellow scarf.

Red Beanie — a soft red beanie with a turned brim and a small pale emblem on it, and a red scarf with a long hanging tail.

Yellow Beanie — a lemon beanie over a dark green scarf worked with white bars across it, and a small flower on his front.

Star — no beanie at all. A yellow star with a face of its own perches on his head, over a dark green scarf laced with white.

Made from New Zealand wool.

Please note: small parts. Not suitable for children under three.

New Zealand wool, felted.
Undyed slate grey and cream body, with dyed wool for the beanies, scarves and accessories.
Felted beak, feet and facial details.
Plaited hanging loop.

Width: 3.25"
Height: 4.75"
Depth: 2.5"

He has no seam anywhere, and that is not a finishing detail — it is a different way of making the thing.
A sewn soft toy is flat fabric cut to a pattern, stitched, turned and stuffed, which always leaves a seam line somewhere and usually a flat panel where the back was closed. This penguin was never two pieces. The wool was worked solid in the round from the start, so the grey back wraps continuously into the white front with no join at the shoulder, and the back is as finished as the face.
That is also why he holds a true egg shape. A sewn body takes the shape its seams allow. A felted one takes the shape the maker pushes it into, and can be fuller at the belly and narrower at the crown without a dart anywhere.
The face is built in layers rather than drawn on. Two white brow patches are felted on as separate pieces and stand proud of the grey, and the beak is a small cone pushed in between them so it projects from the face rather than sitting flush. Needle-felted flat onto the surface, the same colours would have read as a painted face. Raised, they catch light from the side and the face has real depth in it.
The eyes are worked into the wool rather than glued on as beads, which is what lets them be shaped — the closed, contented crescents on most of these could not be done with a bead.
The beanies are shaped to the head rather than set on top of it. Each one is felted down over the crown and round the back so it follows the curve of the skull and sits low across the brow, the way a beanie actually sits. A hat built as a disc or a cone and perched on top reads as a prop balanced there; one that grips the head reads as worn.
The scarves are wrapped round the body and felted into place where they meet, with the tail end left loose so it hangs free. Felted down along its whole length, a scarf becomes a stripe. Anchored at the wrap and left loose at the tail, it stays a scarf.
On the Mustard Dot, the cream spots on the beanie and scarf are individual bobbles of wool felted on one at a time, so each one stands up off the ochre and throws a small shadow. Printed or flat-felted dots would have disappeared at arm's length.
And the joke underneath all of ita penguin is the one animal on earth with no use for a beanie and scarf. Dressing him is the point.

Pure New Zealand pasture wool naturally repels dust and light spills thanks to its dense, organic fiber structure.

Day-to-dayair him rather than wash him. Wool sheds dust and odour on its own given a few hours somewhere with moving air.

Shapehe is felted solid, so he holds his form. If he compresses in a box of decorations, roll him gently between your palms and the egg shape comes back.

The scarf tailit hangs loose on purpose and is the part that catches. Lift it clear of a hook rather than pulling him down by the body.

Hanging himuse the loop at the crown, not the beanie or the star. Those are felted on as separate pieces and are not load-bearing.

Spot cleaningblot with a barely damp cloth and let him dry upright. Never submerge — the body is undyed and the beanies and scarves are not, and that is exactly the pairing that runs.

Small partsthe beak, pompoms and accessories are small and separately attached. Not suitable for children under three.