Name: Sunning Tiger Felted Wool Charm
Brand: Carding House Co.
SKU: CHC-ORN-F-003
Price: 24.00 USD
Availability: InStock

Sunning Tiger Felted Wool Charm

$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 felted tiger sitting back on his haunches, forepaws planted, tail curled round to one side, eyes closed in the sun.

Tigers are almost always shown mid-snarl or mid-prowl. This one is doing neither. He is sitting upright the way a cat sits — square, settled, front legs straight — with his eyes closed into contented curves and his chin slightly lifted.

His face is layered in three tones: orange at the crown, a dark brown saddle across the bridge of the nose, and a broad cream muzzle below it with a black line running down to the mouth. A brow stripe above each eye.

The whiskers are real cord — six lengths of twisted white cotton set into the muzzle, three a side, standing clear of the face rather than stitched flat against it.

The stripes are deliberately sparse. Two bars on each foreleg, two more down the tail, a short run at each cheek — and nothing at all across the body, which is left plain orange against the cream chest.

A red and white baker's twine loop at the crown, for a tree, a hook or a shelf edge.

Made from New Zealand wool.

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

New Zealand wool, felted.
Dyed orange, dark brown, black and undyed cream.
Twisted white cotton cord whiskers.
Red and white baker's twine hanging loop.

The posture is the first decision, and it is the unusual one.
Tigers are almost always made mid-snarl or mid-prowl — the open mouth, the lowered head, the shoulders up. This one is sitting square on his haunches with his front legs straight and his eyes shut, chin slightly lifted. It is how a cat sits in a patch of sun, and seeing a full-grown tiger do it is the whole point of him. An ornament of a snarling tiger is a trophy; an ornament of a tiger at ease is a cat.
The eyes are closed into contented curves and worked into the wool rather than set as beads, which is the only way to get a shaped eye at this scale. Two black domes would have given him a stare, and a staring tiger is a different animal.
The stripes are deliberately sparsetwo bars on each foreleg, two down the tail, a short run at each cheek — and nothing at all across the body. A real tiger is striped from shoulder to flank, and copying that onto a piece this size would have turned him into a texture. Dark lines crowded onto a small orange shape stop reading as markings and start reading as noise, and the first thing lost is the silhouette.
Leaving the body plain means the eye reads the shape first and the markings second, which is the right order. It also lets the cream chest stay clean against the orange, and that contrast is doing more work than another ten stripes would.
The whiskers are real cord, not stitches. Six lengths of twisted white cotton set into the muzzle, three a side, standing clear of the face in three dimensions. Embroidered flat against the wool, whiskers become a drawn detail on a surface. Set in as cord, they break the outline of the head and cast shadows across the muzzle — and they are the single feature that stops him looking like a bear.
The face is built in three tones rather than twoorange at the crown, a dark brown saddle across the bridge of the nose, and a broad cream muzzle beneath. That middle band is what most small felted cats leave out, and it is the one that gives the face structure — without it the muzzle just sits on the head as a pale patch.

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.

The whiskersthey stand clear of the face and are the part that catches on a branch or a sleeve. If one bends, roll it between finger and thumb to straighten rather than pulling it out from the muzzle.

Shapehe is felted solid and holds his form. If he flattens in a box of decorations, work him back with your fingers and the round of the head returns.

Hanging himuse the twine at the crown. Do not hang him by an ear or the tail.

Spot cleaningblot with a barely damp cloth and let him dry upright. Never submerge — strong orange against an undyed cream chest is exactly the pairing that runs, and once the chest goes peach it does not come back.

Small partsthe whiskers are individually set. Not suitable for children under three.