I’d been pondering an eco-friendly long-lasting non-toxic Christmas tree for a long time. While wood has been a wonderful thought (and indeed fits all the requirements), I neither have the skill nor space to learn and practice how to make one.

So after much thought and shredded sketches, I decided we should have a wool felt tree, a seasonal tree the children can decorate, whichever season it might be.

I would have loved a 2m tree but the cost of good quality 100% wool felt is high. In the end I went with materialevidence on Etsy from whom I had bought felt from before and whose shop owner had been lovely to work with.

Since this was pretty much learning on the job, I ordered a 1m square sheet of brown wool felt, folded the felt in half, and made the design tall.

Sewing and stuffing took much longer than I expected. I wish I had ordered wool stuffing but it will cost quite a bit for a 1m tree. So I bought kapok which is considerably cheaper but ended up spending hours removing the bits of bark and leaves and miscellaneous debris from it.

In the end I raided my collection of wool roving and used it to stuff the tree instead. It was much better for my sinuses!

It didn’t stand too well despite a wide base so I added an oval piece of wood which helped a little. It still needs a wall to lean on but the kids loved it!

Here it is after the kids decorated it for Christmas:

Me: “Of course we do. I play with my wool playsets.”

Son: “No you don’t.”

That’s true. I don’t. I love arranging them, making them, and photographing them, imagining the little animals in their tiny world. But I don’t play with them in the way children do.

So tonight I thought I’d give the playset some love. But all I did was flip the mat the other side and rearrange the toys. Well, that’s play for me!

The last session brought about this new playmat, wet felted and needle felted to fix the flaws. And today I added a couple of caves and a new needle felted tree. The tiny creatures love their new homes!

My son asked for the boat to accommodate his growing tiny animal family. I needle felted it for him right away.

The owl was the first animal, then the bluebird for my little boy who loves blue, then the 2 rabbits.

The cat is the tiniest at 1cm. Look! The tiny bunny and kitty are sitting inside my wedding ring.

And last but not least the tiny 2 inch in diameter tiny playscape with a tree that actually stands! Love them.

The kids love them!

Looking at the playscape sitting on my desk, with the larger sea scape I made the other day, I thought how nice it would be to have some bushes around. But with the felt in my hand, the idea of a hedge came to mind. Like all the pieces in the playscape, it should be as open ended as possible for imaginative play.

Putting my very poked cushion on my lap, I began folding bits of green textured felt (from my very first failed playscape) and needle felted the pieces together to make a 3×1 inch hedge and when I had two, I folded the ends together and felted them together so the two pieces would form an L to stand.

Somehow I ended up with 4 L shaped fences in the end. I thought the hedge looks prettier than the ad hoc tree branches before. Let’s see what the kids think tomorrow.

While putting the finished pieces together, I imagined a beach as bright as the sun the end of the world and I quickly made up this small yellow island to add to the playscape too.

Still learning how to needle felt. Made the two hearts for the children and they were so thrilled to receive them in the morning.

I tore the wool as thinly as I could and laid it out. Mistake number one here was I should have overlapped more of the wool but I didn’t. So I had to do a little patching up later as you see in the second frame below.

Halfway through I decided it didn’t look symmetrical enough and patched around the sides. At this stage I’d been pressing, adding hot water, cold water, more soap, rinsing excess water, flipping the playscape between bamboo mats for some 45 minutes already. My hands were drying out and my patience thinning.

I persisted for another 15 minutes, checked the time and realized I’d been at it for an hour now. So I decided to call it a day, peeled the very loose patches off, rinsed the playscape thoroughly, even flinging it against the sink a few times, which apparently shocks the fibres into binding together.

Interestingly after the flinging, the playscape shaped up a bit and looks quite nicely proportioned. So here it is, drying on my desk. I couldn’t resist adding a few tiny friends to it.