Storybook Toadstool Felted Wool Brooch

$18.00 USD

Color Indigo Ember Moss Mulberry

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

Four toadstools in colours no toadstool has ever been, each one small enough to wear.

The body is needle-felted solid — a domed cap over a tapering stem that swells into a dark bulb at the foot, as though it had just been pulled out of the ground with the soil still on it. Worn on a lapel, that root end is what sells it: most felt mushrooms stop at a tidy stem, and this one looks dug up.

The caps are where the work is. Wool cannot be blended on the surface the way paint can, so the colours have to be merged at the fibre stage: different fleeces drawn and carded together before any felting happens, so the transition lives inside the wool rather than sitting on top of it. That is why the red cap slides into orange and then yellow without a visible edge anywhere, and why the indigo one has copper surfacing through it like something seen underwater.

The spots are the opposite — separate discs of wool laid on afterwards and punched down hard, so they sit crisp and raised against all that softness.

Indigo — deep violet with copper breaking through, magenta spots.
Ember — red burning down through orange into yellow, cream spots, a plum-stained foot.
Moss — green going gold at the rim, magenta spots.
Mulberry — deep wine with pale streaks running over the crown, cream spots.

A pin bar on the back. Made from New Zealand wool.

New Zealand wool, needle-felted solid in the round.
Cap colours blended at the fibre stage before felting.
Applied felted spots.
Metal pin bar on the back.
No wire armature, no plastic core.

Sculptural needle felting, with the colour work done before the sculpting begins.
Wool cannot be blended on the surface the way paint can — push one colour into another with a needle and you get a muddy, mottled edge. So the gradients here are built at the fibre stagedifferent fleeces are drawn out and carded together first, so the transition lives inside the wool itself. Only then is the blended fleece wound and punched into a cap. That is why the Ember cap slides from red through orange into yellow with no visible boundary anywhere, and why the Indigo has copper surfacing through the violet rather than sitting on it.
The spots are the exact opposite move. They are separate discs of wool laid on afterwards and punched down hard, so they stay crisp and raised against all that softness. Blended spots would disappear.
The stem is felted as a tapering column that swells into a bulb at the foot, worked in dark grey and black so it reads as soil still clinging to the root. The fibre there is left deliberately loose and wispy rather than packed smooth — roots are not tidy, and on a brooch that untidy end is what stops it looking like a toy.
The body is felted dense rather than soft, because a brooch has to carry the weight of its own pin without sagging.

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. This one hangs long rather than sitting flat, so on a fine knit it will pull; go through a seam or a doubled section.

The root endthe loose wispy fibre at the foot is meant to be there. Do not trim it — it is what makes the piece look dug up rather than manufactured.

Day-to-daya soft brush lifts dust from the cap, following the dome. Keep a lint roller away from the foot, as it will strip the halo.

Spot cleaningblot with a barely damp cloth and dry fully before wearing again. Never soak — the blended cap colours will run into one another and into the cream stem, and a blended gradient cannot be put back.

Sunlightstrong colour on wool fades unevenly, and on a gradient that shows faster than on a flat shade. Store it out of a sunny window rather than pinned to a coat by the door.