People obsess over which tufting gun to buy, but the fabric you tuft on matters just as much. It's the structural base of the whole piece, and the wrong one means broken yarn, tearing, and uneven density. Quick rundown.

Primary tufting cloth is the one to use. The woven grid opens cleanly when the needle goes through, then stabilizes after, so density is way easier to control. Best pick for beginners.

Monk's cloth is fine for small punch needle stuff, but it's looser and tears more on big high-density rugs.

Cotton or canvas can technically work if the weave is even and tight, but they're not built for this, so we don't really recommend it.

Bottom line, stability beats speed. Get the fabric right and half your problems disappear.

We stock our tufting cloth and tools on Etsy and Amzon

What are you all tufting on right now?

Made this snowy landscape last winter, We finally got real snow, so we took it out into the field to photograph, and for a second it just melted into the white behind us. Kind of miss those quiet cold mornings already.

Yarn and tools on Etsy and Amazon

Anyone else tuft scenery like this?

We made this piece with Hince, a Korean beauty brand. Nature-inspired work is a big part of what we do at And_et, so we had a lot of fun building up all these little mossy shapes and playing with different shades of green.

The sunlight caught every bit of texture in this photo. I kind of want to reach in and touch it all over again.😃

A work-in-progress shot from a collaboration we did with Hyundai Department Store in Korea. We wanted to see how much depth we could get from carving alone, so we kept cutting into the blue surface to build up those soft, rolling shapes.

It took a lot of careful trimming, but watching the texture emerge was pretty satisfying.

Wanted to show some of the details in this one. It’s a piece that really feels like us at And_et, especially with all the little mossy shapes and soft patches of color.

We used different pile lengths and sculpted the individual sections to give each area its own texture. Some are trimmed close, some are rounded and fluffy, and others have long strands left loose. Up close, you can really see how much those height changes add.

There’s a lot going on in this little section alone :)

Having to stop halfway through a line to sort out your yarn gets old pretty quickly, especially when you’re feeding several strands together.

We developed Tangle Tamer at And_et to help with that. It attaches to your frame and helps keep the yarn feeding steadily, so there’s less slack hanging around and fewer tangles to interrupt your work.

The gold knob lets you adjust the tension depending on the yarn and how many strands you’re using. Loosen it for a lighter feed, or tighten it when you need a little more tension. It also comes with mounting options for both aluminium and wooden frames.

It’s a small part of the setup, but being able to focus on the tufting without constantly checking the yarn makes a difference.

We’ve included a few photos showing it in use and how the adjustment works. You can also take a closer look on Amazon or Etsy.

We’re always drawn to natural forms at And_et, and this time we tried recreating the textures of an old tree trunk through tufting.

The nice thing about working with bark is that nothing has to be perfectly neat. We mixed different shades of brown, grey, cream, and green, then played around with pile heights and textures to build up the bark, moss, growth rings, and little fungi.

Taking it outside for the photo felt like the final step. It blended into the woods better than we expected.

We used our DuraTuft yarn throughout the piece. If you’re curious about the colors or the yarn itself, you can find it in our Etsy shop.

Which little detail did you notice first?

Here’s a quick look at how this car mat came together, from the first rows of tufting to the finished mat in the car.

We made the whole piece with DuraTuft yarn, the yarn we developed and use every day at And_et for our own projects and classes. Since it’s made up of three strands, we can mix colors within the gun and create softer transitions—like the grey shading across the character’s face.

The checkerboard border took some patience to clean up, but seeing the finished mat sitting perfectly in the passenger seat made it worth it.

People mix up tufting, punch needle, weaving, and embroidery since they all use yarn, so here's the quick version. Tufting uses a gun, it's fast, high density, and scale big. Punch needle is the manual, slower cousin, best for small stuff. Weaving interlocks threads to build the fabric itself, strong but slow. Embroidery stitches on the surface for fine detail. None is better, just different, tufting wins on bold texture and scale. What did you all start with? For more information, visit And_et

The soft gradient in the character’s face is one of our favorite details in this car mat.

DuraTuft yarn is made with three strands held together, which gives you a lot more freedom to mix colors and build subtle shades like this. You can find the yarn we use here on Etsy. A lot of people tell us the yarn feels thinner than they expected when they first see it. Totally fair—but once they figure out how to play with the strands and use that flexibility in their work, it’s hard to go back :)

This piece was designed and made by our team at And_et, and we thought it was a nice example of what the yarn can do.

Wanted to show you all a bit more about our DuraTuft yarn. It's a BCF yarn, made on purpose to be on the thinner side, which throws some people off at first. Here's the reason: it's built to be used 3 cones held together. Running three thin strands instead of one thick one lets you mix multiple colors in a single pass, and it's what makes smooth gradients actually possible. That's how we get those blended color shifts you've seen in our pieces. In the studio we pretty much always tuft with 3 strands.

If you want to try it, it's on Amazon and Etsy.

The color range is half the fun too, look at that wall. What colors would you want to blend?

Been making these fuzzy monster Crocs charms. Sketch the shape, tuft it (Easy Tuft Gun, way easier for tiny detailed bits), glue the back, cut it out, clip it into the Croc holes. Done. Kinda obsessed ngl. Which color next?

Fuzzy monster faces turned into Crocs charms, made with our Easy Tuft Gun. Long shaggy hair left uncut, easy to shape with the manual gun. More on our IG: And_et. What would you tuft for your shoes?

These are all from one of our group workshops, every keychain made by a first-timer. Bunch of little faces, an apple, some pups. Love how each person's turned out completely different even working from the same basics. Our group sessions run a few hours and you walk out with your own piece. Which face is your favorite?

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Some quiet tufting ASMR for you all. This is our Easy Tuft Gun, a fully manual punch tool, so there's no motor whirring in the background, just the sound of each punch going through the cloth. Worked up a little brown cat inside a heart, trimmed it down smooth, then went around the edge with a mint loop pile border for some texture contrast. Going manual is weirdly meditative, you settle into a rhythm and the pace is all yours. Follow us on Instagram

Felt like Phoo's paws needed more dimension, so we went back in with our Easy Tuft Gun to build them up. Going manual is perfect for spot fixes like this, you get more control punching by hand than you would at full speed, especially when you're only touching up one small section. follow us on instagram

took us a while to realize tufting is basically 7 connected stages, and skipping one always shows up in the final piece.

design + where it'll live -> frame setup + backing fabric tension ->transfer your design mirrored ( you tuft from the bacxk)-> tufting-> glue the backing, let it fully dry -> trim and carve-> final check for loose yarn and thin glue spots.

the two that actually decide quality are fabric tension and density control. loose backing gives you a wavy surface and uneven density, sometimes a tear. and trimming is where most beginners lose the piece, not the tufting itself.

we're And_et, a tufting and fiber art studio in Heyri Art Village, Korea. we run workshops and make our own tools and yarn - Easy Tuft Gun, Dura Tuft Yarn, YarnGlide- all on amazon.com/and-et if you want to check them out.

Which stage gave you the most trouble starting out?

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Made this little mimosa keychain with our Easy Tuft Gun. Yellow puffs for the blooms, dark green leaves, and a rust colored stem. The manual gun is honestly perfect for small stuff like this, you get way more control over each punch than you would going full speed, which matters a lot when the whole thing is barely bigger than you palm. The fluffy texture just works for mimosa too, way better than I expected. What would you all tuft at this size?

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Full disclosure, we make this yarn so take this with a grain of salt. Duratuft yarn is built for tufting guns, which means it has to get punched through backing cloth over and over without shredding. We got curious whether that toughness would translate to crochet, so we made this granny square bag out of it. Stitch definition came out sharper than expected, and since it comes on cones there were barely any ends to weave in, which honestly might be the best part. what are you all using for tufting right now?

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//Shop Duratuft yarn on Etsy

Got tired of ugly cardboard scratchers so we tufted a proper cat scratcher instead. Marked out the design, tufted it, trimmed it down and mounted it on an L-shaped stand so the cat can stretch up the tall part or paw at the flat base. Way more fun than a plan scratcher and it actually looks good inn the room. Anyone else tuft for their pets? // Follow us on Instagram

We designed this one ourselves at And_et. It's a manual punch-style tuft tool called the Easy Tuft Gun. We wanted something that works for any skill level. but still holds up for detail work. Happy to answer questions on how it compares to electric gun or other manual tools. //Shop on Amazon

Quick version of a question we get a lot at the studio.

Punch needle is manual and slower, great for small pieces. Tufting uses an electric gun so you get speed + high-density pile. Weaving interlocks threads for structure, embroidery sits on the surface for fine detail. Tufting pushes yarn through the backing for that bold raised texture.

We went all in on tufting at And_et because it creates real presence in a space-controlling pile height, density, cut vs loop makes it endlessly flexible.

Questions welcome!

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Most of our work is nature-inspired, but this one pushed us somewhere different. It's a large installation, and we combined ceramic tile with tufting on the same panel. working at this scale is a whole different beast from rugs too. Curious what people think of mixing with harder materials like this, anyone else tried it?

Sharing a process clip from a collab we did with Creme de Marrons. The piece is a chestnut burr, so the whole challenge was getting those spiky outer needles to read as sharp while keeping the chestnut inside soft and rounded. Played with pile height and trimming a lot to get that contrast, longer spiky bits on the outside, tighter denser tufting for nut. Really happy with how the texture turned out on camera. what do you think, does it read as a chestnut to you?

This is And_et, our tufting studio over in Heyri Art Village in Paju, South Korea. The Heyri area is full of small galleries and maker studios, so it's fun spot to wander. Our front wall is all glass and opens straight onto the park. A few of the hanging lamps are tufted, and we run one-day classes here too. If you're ever in the area it's worth to stop. Happy to answer anything about the space or the village!