Begin your miniature raccoon, or other animal, by pulling off a group of white fibres from your wool or silk roving. Roll the fibres into a loose ball between the palms of your hands. The ball will be about 1 1/2 inches in diameter if you are making a raccoon in dollhouse scale.
Now lay your ball on your felting foam or mat, and start pushing your coarsest needle through the ball to felt it. I used a # 38 needle for this.
Poke the needle through the ball in a straight up and down motion (watch out for your fingers the needles are sharp with jagged edges!) These needles break easily so always work straight up and down. The needles must be pushed in far enough to catch the fibres in the cut edges of the needles, you need to poke more than the tip of the needle through the fibre.
Keep one side of the ball unfelted as you will use this side to felt your head onto the body.
Look at the next photo to see how to shape the head.