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With the winter cold now upon us in Japan, we suppose it’s natural that some of us should feel more partial than usual to warm, fuzzy-looking objects — like wool felt dolls, for instance. And in that spirit, one of our reporters from our sister site Pouch decided to try her hand at making her own felt doll herself. Sounds like a nice little project that should result in a cute hand-made creation, right?

This same reporter has previously written a story about a felt-craft project gone horribly wrong that had been shared on Twitter, in which what was supposed to turn into a cute cat ended up as, well … a bizarre-looking creature that’s hard to describe accurately. Could it really be that difficult to make a decent-looking felt doll? Our reporter’s account follows.

Our reporter admits that she’s not too clumsy with her hands and even has experience making some stuffed dolls before, so understandably, she thought that if she put her mind to it, she may actually be able to create an awesomely cute felt Shiba Inu. Well, there was only one way to find out!

Let’s see how the process went …

▼Okay, let’s make a cute shiba dog!felt 1

▼So, this is how it’s supposed to be done.felt 2

▼How cute! We’re looking forward to the finished product alreadyfelt 3

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▼All this material is supposed to turn into a shiba dogfelt 5

▼We first create the basic structure of the dog using a resin-based wire-like material called “techno rhoto”felt 6

▼We poke away with the needlefelt 7

▼This is going to be the bodyfelt 8

▼Oops, the head looks disproportionately big!felt 9

▼Finished！felt 10

▼Some more pictures of the finished productfelt 11

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▼Oh, dear … not cute at all!felt 15

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Okay, so it wasn’t easy at all making a felt doll. Instead of an adorable doggie, we ended up with an unattractive ball of fuzz. Sad! When you’re making a doll from wool felt, you have to poke the wool with a needle as shown above, but this was the first time our reporter worked with the material, and it was apparently hard to tell exactly how much you’re supposed to poke the wool.

Our reporter also went through the experience of stabbing her fingers multiple times with the needle as well as getting wool fibers into her eyes during the doll making process, so it definitely was no walk in the park. In addition, she ended up using all the brown wool on the head and didn’t have any left for the body, which certainly didn’t help the appearance of the doll. Unfortunately, whichever way you look at it, the finished product doesn’t bear much resemblance to a shiba dog. Twitter users who have seen the creation have left comments such as:

“The nose looks funny, doesn’t it? Or is it my mind that’s acting funny? Or maybe it’s both …”
“Ohh, nicely done! Almost a model example!”
“Ugly and cute.”
“If this was her first time working with the material, it’s not too bad an effort.”
“It actually has a kind of nostalgic and elegant simplicity that you don’t see in modern-day mascots.”

So, we ended up with something that maybe vaguely looks like a shiba dog with an enormous head. Admittedly, it wasn’t what you would call a successful attempt, but our reporter says she plans to practice and try again, as she isn’t ready to give up on felt craft just yet. Perhaps we’ll be able to see a beautiful felt creation by our reporter after all in the not too distant future!

Original Article by: Usagi Yumeno
Photos: RocketNews24
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