Minature Dog Sculpture in Wool

‘I have always loved wool, the raw kind of wool that you might pick a handful of from a barbed-wire fence. I’ve also always loved dogs and they have been a constant feature in my life.’Jilly Carrington Jilly Carrington after working for the Music Industry for 25years decided to change direction. NeedleFeltingwas taught throughout her childhood.Thus creating dogs, using this method, seemed the natural way to go.   Along with an understanding of dogs, both in terms of character traits and physiology, Jilly manages tocapture the personality in an instant.   Stating that,     'Making each dog is exactly like painting a portrait, but in wool.Wool is the perfect medium for portraying the personality and ‘feel’ of each individual dog.     I choose to make them quite small, so that they are always of a size no larger than something that can sit in your hand. They are intended to be purely ornamental pieces - tiny sculptures in wool that will sit beautifully on a mantelpiece or shelf, but despite their size rarely go unnoticed.’

The dogs are sculpted from raw wool which has been shorn, washed and carded from a variety of sheep breeds including Swaledale, Blue FAced Leicester, Suffolk, Cheviot, Gotland and Welsh Blacks. The technique used to handcraft the dogs is known as needle-felting, a method of teasing, shaping and firming raw wool so that it becomes quite dense and solid in form.

Jilly Carrington’s work now has a celebrity following, and receives many international commissions.. All works are original editions of 1/1Each piece taking10-14 hours to make.