This funky retro design is a challenge; you will need to use your eyes and skill to judge where and how much wool you need, for balance and proportion. Allow at least a day for completion.
70g yellow merino roving
2 × size 40 triangular needles, for shaping
1–2 × size 42 triangular needles, for surface finishing
Small amounts of brown or black merino roving
Yellow thread
Small amount of orange merino roving
2 × 3mm black glass eyes or seed beads
Thick black cotton thread
Finished size: 14cm tall
1 Take a length of yellow roving measuring 50 × 4cm. Pull the roving about to arrange it loosely into a basic giraffe body. Begin shaping it with two size 40 needles.
2 Leave enough wool free at the top to shape the head, bending it over at a 45-degree angle. Work until the whole piece is firm but still squeezable. The neck should now be about 8cm long.
3 Make the legs from four pieces of wool, each measuring 10 × 2cm. Fold each length over and shape them into pointy-ended stumps, leaving the joining ends loose. When they are all of equal size, fix them onto the body, splaying out the end fibres and needling them in place. You can use a spare needle to hold the leg in place as you work.
4 Look carefully at the body and add more wool where needed; you may need to fill in around the leg areas, the chest, the back or the rump, for an attractive shape and better balance.
5 This is the shape you are aiming for.
6 Add two leaf-shaped ears; these can be created from small scraps of roving and can be needled directly onto the head. Use one size 40 needle for this.
7 Using a skinny scrap of the yellow wool and one size 40 needle, make a slim tail roughly 2cm long on your felting mat.
8 Add a tuft of brown or black wool and cover the join by lashing over it with yellow thread. Tease the ends of the tuft out and trim carefully before fixing the whole tail onto the rump.
9 When you are satisfied with the general shape of your giraffe, cover the entire form with thin layers of gauzy wool to smooth the surface and cover the joins. Start out with two size 40 needles, but for a really fine finish, go down to one size 42 needle in the later stages. Where possible, make sure the covering fibres follow the same direction as the body fibres.
10 To create hooves, wrap scraps of dark wool around the feet, using just one size 42 needle.
11 For the mane, take a thin strip of the same dark roving used for the hooves, measuring 24 × 1cm. Double it over and needle the mane directly onto the neck; the folded end should be on top of the head to form the top knot. Decorate the body with various-sized spots in a snazzy colour (I have used orange). Use one size 42 needle to twizzle the wool in a circular direction. Sew in the eyes using the sideways method and stitch a nose with black thread (see here). If you’ve reached the end of this project, well done – it was a tough one!