Precious pets come back to life - in felt
Want a solid memento of your dearly departed pet, but can’t cope with the idea of taxidermy?
Diana Steven has just the job: a replica made of felt.
The Kapiti Coast artist uses needles, wool and wire to make uncanny miniature models of people’s precious pets, and says about 80 per cent of her work involves recreating those that have died.
One satisfied customer is Jenni Fraser, who has a near-perfect replica of Sasha, her beloved late cat, complete with a swatch of her fur for the heart. She keeps it under glass, next to Sasha’s ashes.
Steven’s business, Heartfelties, made up the replica from photographs.
‘‘What is really nice, we found a little bit of her fur, which Diana put in where her heart is,’’ Fraser said.
Seeing her cat remade had been such an incredible experience that she had a second replica made of Sasha’s surviving litter-mate, Nyssa.
‘‘I had another cat before these two, and you forget what they look like . . .’’
Steven, of Paraparaumu, started needle-felting about 18 months ago while taking an enforced rest, recovering from a serious illness.
Her first non-living replica was an American goat.
‘‘That was Ann the goat . . . there was an American lady, her business was called Rent a Ruminant, so you rent a goat to deal with your patch of grass.’’
Needle-felting involves pushing barbed needles through wool, ‘‘over and over’’, shaping and compressing it into felt musculature, then adding fur.
The felt is wrapped over wire skeletons, and Steven calls the departed creations ‘‘memory pets’’.
She has now recreated about 100 pets, living and dead, with the majority being dogs, but including rabbits, cats, and even a couple of horses.
The pets cost about $250 each, and Steven has had global orders, including an Australian woman who had replicas made of her two living terriers, which she gave to the dogs.
Steven has a couple of cats herself, and her work has given her a new understanding of how important pets are to their human companions.
‘‘I didn’t realise I’d end up working in the grief industry, but people cry when they come to pick them up,’’ Steven said.