Needle-Felt Goat Head Keychain Craft Tutorial
There is a rank smell in your living room. You go to investigate and find a disembodied goat’s head sitting on your couch cushions. The stench. The horror. The craft inspiration!
In the first novel of the Wicktoria Academy series, The Death Witch, our heroine Agnes discovers a goat’s head in her own living room. Inside this disgusting pile of furry flesh is a letter inviting her to attend Wicktoria Academy of Dark Magic and Divination.
As a dark witch yourself, you must be feeling nostalgic for a simpler time when a rotting goat’s head was the biggest of your problems. Let’s reminisce together as we make a tiny replica of this fond memory through the art of needle-felt!
You will need:
Ø Needle-felting wool in mostly natural colours such as black, brown, beige, yellow, and white
o I get my wool from Amazon in bundle packs of 3 grams each
o Feel free to customize your colour palette! You may also want to add extra features such as a pink tongue, white teeth, red blood, green mold, whatever your heart desires!
Ø Needle-felting surface
o I use a basic reusable canvas shopping bag with a plastic bag of rice inside
o It just needs to be a stable surface for your stabbing to take place on, without weaving into your piece!
Ø Needle-felting tools
o Needle & holder, size and type are non-specific
o THUMB & FINGER GUARDS
Ø Pliers
Ø Keychain hoop, rings & lobster clasp
Ø Pin with a hoop for attaching lobster clasp
Let’s get into it!
Step 1: Mix two of your colours together to create a more interesting blend. I mixed 3 grams of beige and 3 grams of caramel by pulling apart the wool and pushing the colours together, ripping and mixing repeatedly until a satisfying blend was created.
Step 2: Begin stabbing! Form a ball with the puff of mixed wool. REMOVE and SAVE a small amount of this mixed wool for the ears & nose in the next steps. Holding the ball carefully with your thumb and middle finger (while wearing your guards), begin to stab the ball into shape. The ball will compress as you stab as the wool is being pushed together. Keep going until your ball is decently dense with a little squeeze but not too much give.
Step 3: Split the remaining unfelted wool in three. Take two of the sections and create an ear shape by stabbing it flat against your needle-felting surface. Flip over the ears and adjust each side accordingly so that neither becomes too matted. Make the nose by doing the same thing.
Step 4: Attach the ears by holding the ends to the sides of the ball and stabbing it into the wool. Keep going until the ears cannot easily be torn off. In the picture you can see they are rather round. I like to lay them sideways against the needle-felting surface and stab them into a more triangular shape once they are secure.
Step 5: Attach the nose in the same way, only this time you are stabbing the entire shape onto the ball, rather than just one end. Do not stab too much, or you will lose the dome shape of the nose.
Step 6: Make the horns in the same way as the ears and nose, by laying black wool onto your needle-felting surface and stabbing it into your desired shape. You can make them curled, sharp, or short and stubby like I did for this particular goat’s head. Then stab them directly onto the head, diagonally in front of the ears. Test their sturdiness by pulling at them. You are done once they are the shape you desire and will not come popping off any time soon.
Step 7: Add the eyes and nostrils. For the eyes, take a pinch of yellow wool and stab two ovals into the sides of the goat’s face. Add more or less wool depending on how bulging you want the eyes to be. Take a sliver of black wool and roll it between your fingers to create a thin line. Stab this line into the centre of the eyes to create the signature horizontal pupils. Create the nostrils by making a Y shape on the end of the nose and stabbing it into place.
Step 8: Add your optional touches, such as teeth, a tongue, blood, etc. I added a bit of bone jutting out of the base of the head by felting white directly on.
Step 9: Lobotomize your goat by driving the needle straight through the head where you want the pin to go. Then, slide the pin through the hole you created. Taking the bottom of the pin with your pliers, twist it into a C shaped hook that’s end goes back into the head. Pulling at the top of the pin, you should now be unable to pull it free from the head as the hook is stopping it.
Step 10: Attach your keychain and there you go! A goat’s head of your very own to attach to your bag, keys, whatever you like.
Here are a couple of other goat’s heads I made featuring a tongue and beard. Don’t be afraid of trying something new! Being a student of dark magic in a place as dangerous as Wicktoria Academy, creative experimentation should be the least of your fears.
Don’t forget to get your copy of The Death Witch HERE and find out how Agnes’ first year as a student of dark magic went after receiving her goat’s head. Thank you for reading!
