Needle Felting a Whole Tomato Universe for Tomato Day at the Durham Farmers Market

Reminder, Durham: The Durham Farmers’ Market Tomato Day is July 18, and this year my needles have been very stabby. I teamed up with four other fiber artist friends (check out our Makeshift Collective) to build a full lineup of tomato-themed art for Tomato Day. Tomorrow we’ll be raffling them off to raise money for DFM's Double Bucks program, which stretches SNAP, WIC, and Senior FMNP dollars further at the market.

Here's what I made, why I made it, and how you can walk away with a piece of it for $5 a raffle ticket.

My Felted Tomato Things

Killer Tomato

This one's an homage to Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (the 1990s Saturday morning cartoon I grew up on). I heard there’s a sequel to the original 1970s film is the works too. This guy is 100% wool, and those teeth were such a bitch to make lol. And those yellow eyes were seriously terrifying before I got the eyebrows on. I mean, it’s still pretty creepy even with eyebrows. Shaping the head was an extreme experiment, and it stubbornly looked like the baby from Dinosaurs for way too long before it I squished it more and it thankfully turned into a tomato.

Tomato Slice Pin

A tiny wool tomato slice: seeds, pulp, fuzzy red rind and all. Pin it so it can ride around on your denim jacket or farmers market tote bag. There's something deeply satisfying about needle felting a flat, 2D object. It's classic, it's simple, and kinda looks like it wandered off a cutting board. A really fuzzy cutting board.

Tomato Rat

A pocket-sized woolly rat and it’s emotional support tomato. Objectively the most adorable thing I made this round.

Tomato Glasses & Mini Tomato Vine (not for sale)

I also made a pair of tomato-shaped glasses and a mini tomato vine, because I just couldn’t stop making things. Neither is going up for sale, but you'll get to see them in person at the market.

The vine, for the record, nearly broke me. I could have used a wire armature to keep it upright and stiff, but I wanted the stems to fall and curve the way a real vine does, which meant felting without structural support 🫠. That decision made every step more tedious and directly resulted in more finger stabs than the rest of this project combined. Worth it, but I'm not doing it again anytime soon.

Overall tomato exploration rating: 100/100 

The Raffle

Makeshift's five artists pooled our tomato obsession into one Tomato Day raffle benefiting DFM's Double Bucks program. Tickets are $5 each, and prizes include:

• A tomato mirror

• Needlepoint tomato coasters

• Field Study, a tomato-themed loom kit

• A green baseball hat that says "fried"

• One of my needle felted tomato slice pins

All proceeds go straight to Double Bucks, so every ticket you buy helps stretch someone else's grocery dollars at the market.

Needle Felting Tomatoes: FAQ

What's the hardest tomato shape to needle felt? Vines. A single tomato slice or a rounded tomato body felts up fast because you're working with fairly simple, symmetrical forms. A vine with multiple tomatoes hanging off thin, curving stems is way harder, especially if you're avoiding a wire armature and want it to hang naturally instead of standing stiff.

Do you need a wire armature to needle felt a tomato vine? Not necessarily, but it makes life easier. Skipping the armature gives you a more natural, gravity-true drape, but it means the wool has no internal support while you're stabbing it into shape, which slows everything down and increases your odds of stabbing something that isn't wool (aka your finger)

What's the trickiest part of needle felting a face, like on a killer tomato? Eyes before eyebrows. It sounds minor, but a finished eye with no brow shape around it reads as unsettling almost every time and you don't get the "character" until the brow goes in and gives the face somewhere to land. Teeth are small by comparison, but while still challenging, they are more fun details to shape imo.

Is a 2D needle felted piece, like a tomato slice, easier than a 3D figurine? Generally yes. You're building up a flat plane rather than sculpting volume from every angle, so it's a great project if you want something satisfying and relatively quick, like a pin or patch.

What wool works best for a juicy red tomato? 100% wool batts in layered reds gives you that deeper, richer "flesh" look (ew, flesh), especially if you vary the shade slightly between the rind and the interior.

Come Say Hey

We'll have the whole tomato lineup, the raffle, and plenty of fiber art chaos at Durham Farmers Market on July 18, 2026 (TOMORROW). Come support Double Bucks, meet the Makeshift crew, and maybe walk away with a tomato of your very own. See you there!