Needle Felting an Octopus

_{By CSITDMS on pixabay}

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A short while ago, I took a class in needle felting, because I love learning new stuff.

Turns out my lack of artistic talent is mostly focused on two-dimensional stuff, and the llama I did for practice actually ended up looking like a llama!

Encouraged by the success, I decided to do something slightly more challenging:

An Octopus.

The size of my hand.

With wire in his arms.

Oh, the hubris!

It all started out nice an easy. I got a bunch of wool and supplies and started making the basic shapes for the head - an egg and a barrel, which I then combined.

The fun thing about needle felting is that you stab something until it takes the shape you want. Sadly, that's generally not an option in most other situations.

The arms were the real pain in the ass.

As I wanted them to be movable, I had to felt them around a piece of wire.

I had to be careful to not hit the wire with my needle, or the needle would have broken.
Instead of hitting the wire, the needle punched holes in my fingers several times.

After one arm, I started reassessing my life decisions, but mama didn't raise a quitter, so I followed through, made all 8 arms, and attached them to the head.

This, of course, doesn't look very octopus-y yet. I brought in the head by smushing it together and stabbing the wool until it stayed in place.

Between the arms, I added "tissue", to give the octopus a more organic look.

With the body shape done, it was time to add colour!

The friend I made this for loves greens and blues, so I decided to just go wild with that.

The base colour became a light blue, on top of which I added the other colours.

Finally, it was time to give my little octopus the gift of sight, add some eyes, adjust the arms, and voilá:

Cute little octopus!

My friend was thrilled.

I will never make an octopus again, screw that.