Maker confessions: The Full English (One Egg)

I thought I’d made one egg. My chat history says otherwise.

For over two years, I thought this story went: I punch needled a fried egg, planned a whole breakfast series, and then promptly never touched a punch needle again. Then I scrolled back through a chat with one of my maker friends and discovered I’d made more than the egg.

It started on TikTok, where I came across Duygu, who makes all sorts of amazing things and runs punch needle workshops in London. One of her videos showed punch needled holiday decorations, and she made it look so easy. The algorithm did what the algorithm does, and for the next few weeks my feed was nothing but punch needle. By the end of it, I was convinced I could do it too. This was in my proverbial fibre arts dark days, after sewing but before crochet and way before knitting, back when I thought two crafts was plenty.

If you want to see punch needling done properly, go and follow her. Not even just punch needling, she’s a creative crafty mastermind.

In July 2024, I bought a Frida punch needle kit from Houtje Touwtje, a Dutch hobby shop. They still sell it, though the contents have changed since. I traced the pattern that came with it and made a Frida Kahlo portrait outline.

It was harder than I expected. The shop’s description now says punch needle takes slightly less patience than embroidery, which is fair, but still perhaps a little optimistic. Keeping tension was an issue, I kept destroying the cheese cloth, loops got tangled to all hell, yarn was getting away from me. This is what the front looked like halfway through:

Copying someone else’s design left me a bit unsatisfied, so I started making my own. The smiley has no purpose. I just wanted to make something cute and round, and then I never finished the edges. The egg was supposed to be the first of a breakfast series, think eggs, bacon, a waffle, tomato, the whole works. I made the egg, and that was the end of breakfast.

The supplies are still with me, living safely in a labeled IKEA Moppe near my sewing station. I do plan to use them again, although the pile of other projects I have in progress at the same time suggests that might not mean much.

That’s confession number one. It’s also the first post in Maker Confessions, which I’d like to promise won’t go the way of the breakfast series. But you’ve seen how I plan things.

Confession level: Mild. I do finish things, mostly. The smiley’s edges are still pending.

What’s your one-and-done craft? Tell me I’m not the only one.