Name: Herdwick Sheep Felted Wool Brooch
Brand: Carding House Co
SKU: CHC-BRC-F-002
Price: 24.00 USD
Availability: InStock

Herdwick Sheep Felted Wool Brooch

$24.00 USD

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 grey sheep with a honey-coloured face, looking directly at you.

The fleece is the whole point. Rather than felting the body as one smooth grey mass, it is built from dozens of small bobbles worked individually and packed together across the back and flanks — which is how a tight-curled fleece actually reads at a distance, as texture rather than colour. The grey is left heathered, light and dark fibres carded together, so no two bobbles are quite the same shade.

The face and the long lop ears are a separate honey-tan wool, felted smooth so they sit quiet against all that texture. Two black glass beads for eyes, and the nose and mouth are a single stitched Y. Four black felt hooves below.

The colouring follows the Herdwick — the grey hill sheep with the pale face — which is where the name comes from.

A nickel pin bar is stitched through the back, so it goes on a coat, a jacket, a tote or a bag. Made from New Zealand wool.

New Zealand wool, needle-felted solid.
Heathered grey fleece, honey-tan face and ears, black felt hooves.
Black glass bead eyes, embroidered nose and mouth.
Nickel-finish metal pin bar stitched to the back.

The fleece is built rather than shaped. Each curl is felted as its own small bobble and then worked into the body one at a time, packed tight across the back and flanks. Felting the body as a single smooth mass would be far quicker, and it would read as a grey blob — it is the repeated bobble that makes the eye see fleece instead of colour.
The grey is heatheredlight and dark fibres carded together before felting rather than dyed to one flat tone. That is why no two bobbles land on quite the same shade, and why the body has depth under raking light.
The face and the long lop ears are a separate honey-tan wool, felted smooth and dense so they stay quiet against all that texture — the contrast between the two surfaces is what pulls the eye to the face first.
The pin bar is stitched through the felt rather than glued, so it cannot peel away under the weight of the piece.

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

Wearing itpin through a sturdy layer — wool coating, denim, canvas, a bag strap. On fine knits the weight can pull, so go through a seam or a doubled section.

Day-to-daydust settles between the bobbles, so use a soft brush rather than a lint roller, working into the gaps. A lint roller only lifts the high points.

Spot cleaningblot with a barely damp cloth and dry flat, pin side down. Never soak and never machine wash — the black hooves and the honey face will bleed into the grey.

Reshapingif the fleece flattens where it has been worn against a bag, roll the bobbles back up between finger and thumb. The felt has memory and will come back.