Needle-Felted Jabba the Hutt Sculpture by FforFelt

I’m not sure if needle-felting is a new thing or what, but I’ve only recently become aware of it. Basically, you start with “raw” wool and poke it with some special barbed needles to create three-dimensonal felt shapes. This YouTube video (although not from the same person who made this) will give you an idea of what’s involved. It’s apparently rather time-consuming, but you can achieve some very impressive effects with it. Needle-felted figures tend to be cute things like sheep and rabbits, but you can really make just about anything. Including Jabba, of course.

This was made by Beata Brodka, otherwise known as Etsy seller FforFelt (also see her blog here). She has a number of very impressive creations for sale, including a series of “Alice in Wonderland” characters. These are not cheap, but they are one-of-a-kind and also very labor-intensive to create. Jabba is made entirely of 100% merino wool. And according to Bea, the coloring on this Jabba is entirely accomplished with wool, with the exception of a little watercolor paint in his wrinkles to help them stand out. He stands about 5″ tall and about 8″ long. He’s pretty densely packed and firm, but as he’s essentially one big piece of wool, he’s fairly lightweight.

I had my eye on this for quite a while after she added it to her Etsy store, and finally bit the bullet and bought him. I’m very happy to add him to my collection. Even my wife was impressed when I showed it to her.