The Little Felt Squirrel is a sewing pattern & instructions to make one of the most iconic woodland animals, the squirrel. This adorable felt squirrel would be a great addition to your home/office decor or a woodland-themed baby nursery. It would also make a special handmade gift for any animal lover!
As shown in the image above, this pattern includes two types of tail for you to choose from: the Sewn Tail version, like the red squirrel, or the Needle Felted Tail version, like the grey squirrel. The needle felted version involves a bit of basic needle felting, but there is no need to worry! The task is quite simple, and it is explained step-by-step in the tutorial!
The finished squirrel is approximately 11 cm (4 1/4″) tall, which is not that much smaller than the smallest kind of real squirrel, the African Pygmy Squirrel! We may think of squirrels as small mammals, but they are in fact quite diverse and vary greatly in size, from 13 cm (5″) to almost 1m (3 ft)!
The Little Felt Squirrel is modeled after tree squirrels, which are the most commonly known type of squirrels. (Besides the tree squirrels, there are also ground squirrels and flying squirrels. For example, despite their name, prairie dogs are actually a type of ground squirrel!)
By the way, did you know why tree squirrels are so familiar to us? It is because humans introduced them into city parks (at least that is what happened in the US). Apparently it was rare to see squirrels in US cities, until the mid-1800s when they were brought into city parks to help create more “natural” environments for urban dwellers.
Here, I must make a side note regarding how our actions can affect our surroundings. As much as we may enjoy seeing squirrels in our parks, introducing wild animals into new environments can be problematic. For instance, squirrels are known to chew on electric wires and cause power failures! Furthermore, native wildlife can be threatened by invasive species. An example of this is the UK’s red squirrels that are struggling to survive in competition with the larger and heavier grey squirrels that were introduced from North America.
Regardless of where they are, squirrels do contribute to the welfare of our planet: They are tree planters! We know that squirrels love nuts, right? Well, they bury their gathered nuts in the ground. They use their sense of smell to recover them later, but inevitably they don’t find all of them! So approximately 30% of acorns hidden by squirrels remain undisturbed. Thanks to the squirrels, those buried acorns eventually grow into oak trees!
This download item is available from my online shop, muumade.etsy.com. You can also click on any photo above to go to the item page and download the instructions instantly upon purchase.
If you like the Little Felt Squirrel, you may also be interested in other forest animals from my collection:
