I go through animal obsession phases where I get really interested in a particular type of animal and have to draw it and/or make a stuffed animal of it. This winter I got particularly obsessed with peccaries. These look a lot like pigs or wild boars but are actually not in the same family!

Peccaries have wiry and coarse fur unlike pigs, which just have sparse strands. There are different types of peccaries with different colors. I modeled my baby peccary, also called a peclet!, after a hybrid of a Chacoan peccary and a collared peccary.

I studied a lot of photos of peccaries and made many sketches before developing my pattern. I made the doll with short pile faux fur but used needle felting to create the snout and eyelids. The doll is weighted and intentionally under-stuffed in the body. It’s so fun to hold and cuddle. I named this peccary Griselda and she is still available to adopt in my shop.