Deck Review: The Felt Tarot

Anyone who reads this blog will know that I’m a little obssessed with Jamie Sawyer’s Tarot decks and will back/buy anything she creates. The Felt Tarot is obvs no exception (though it did come hot on the heels of another felt based Tarot deck I’d backed, the Craft Felt Tarot. I guess decks made of felt are like buses? 😂)

Despite the name, the Felt Tarot isn’t made of actual felt, it’s a traditional ink-and-paper deck. But each card began life as a hand-cut felt panel, layered with flocked vinyl and stitched into form before being scanned into print. Sawyer explains that she took no AI shortcuts, just 10-15 hours of slow craft per card. The result is beautiful: every fibre, seam, and edge is captured so clearly it almost looks like you could reach out and feel the felt fuzz!

It’s a really warm, comforting deck – super non-threatening (Tarot can bite, after all!) without ever tipping into twee. That makes it a brilliant choice for beginners. Maybe it’s because I’m teaching one of the little Tarotcupcakes to cycle at the moment, but I can’t help thinking of it as Tarot-with-stabilisers: steady, supportive, and confidence-building.

The artist and creator Jamie Sawyer explains how she has always been making things – sewing, sculpting, drawing, crafting art from whatever was at hand. That creative spark carried her through tattooing, where she learned to push limits and build confidence, and later into Tarot, where art became a tool for self-discovery. In 2015 she created her first deck, Sawyer’s Path Tarot, and hasn’t stopped since. For Sawyer, to create is to divine: each deck is an invitation to play, explore, and stitch (😉) new facets of the self into being.

The Deck: Look, Feel, and Finish

The Felt Tarot comes as a full 78-card deck in the standard size. It’s printed on 330gsm black-core stock, with a smooth shuffle-friendly finish. It’s a tuck box, and as y’all know I’m kind of ‘meh’ about tuck boxes. Reading between the lines, I reckon we can blame the government for that though: Sawyer explains that as she had to print in the US, she wasn’t able to offer the upgrades that previous campaigns have had, as the US facilties aren’t equipped for it.

We also get a chonky black and white guidebook that blends meanings with drawing notes and journal-like reflections – more companion than manual. It’s a great read and super helpful, though I do prefer it when I can store my LWB *with* my Tarot deck, which is hard as this one’s so big.

The borders are on the larger side, but even as an avowed anti-borderer (lol) I don’t actually mind them here. They frame the frayed felt effect beautifully, and the colour-coding makes the deck quick to read – especially handy for beginners. As Sawyer herself points out, it’s almost like having a built-in cheat sheet at a glance. The colours allow us to quickly scan a spread and think “oh no Earth in this one! or whoa, all Majors!“

If I had one criticism, it’s that some of the colours feel a little muted. Felt is such a playful, childlike medium that part of me wants it to really ‘pop’. But as Sawyer notes, “the texture definitely tones [the cards] down”, and in practice, the softened palette does add to the cosy, handmade vibe – even if I sometimes find myself wishing for a brighter burst.

There are also no people per se in this deck. The Courts are the closest we get – human-shaped outlines stuffed with archetypal imagery instead of facial features. It makes them feel inclusive and timeless. Still capturing the essence of the RWS Courts without leaning into those sometimes-problematic gendered hierarchies. They’re a little uncanny too, like a half-remembered face from a fever-dream that blurs into something more symbol than human. But honestly? I dig it.

The deck as a whole is a textural visual experience turned Tarot tool: playful, handmade, and ready to be read.

Greatest Hits: My Favourite Cards from the Felt Tarot

Sawyer is absolutely brilliant at witty little easter eggs in all her decks, and they abound here. There is much to reward the careful viewer, and you could just study each card in the whole deck for ages. This makes it hard to pick favourites, but here I go:

In the Felt Tarot it’s the dog, not the human Fool, who takes centre stage, and I’m here for it! This joyful little pup was modeled on Sawyer’s own late doggo, Barney, and he perfectly captures the boundless enthusiasm for life at the heart of the card. The Fool’s nature is exactly as Sawyer describes her Barney: “playful, goofy, and just happy to be on any journey out in the world, no matter what may be around the next turn”.

The Magician carries all the traditional symbolism (minus the man himself), but what makes this card stand out from generic Magician cards is how beautifully it’s rendered. Sawyer has such a sharp eye for placement – everything feels exactly where it should be. I especially love the use of a travelling table, which feels inspired (and, incidentally, looks just like the one I read Tarot from at my stall!). As Sawyer puts it, “the mystery awaits, all we need to do is have a surface on which to practice.”

The High Priestess is especially striking – her traditional pomegranate is front and centre, and here contains a staircase spiralling down into darkness. It’s Persephone, it’s descent, it’s the mystery and liminality of this archetype made visible. For those not steeped in Greek myth: Persephone was the daughter of Demeter, Goddess of the Harvest, who was abducted by Hades and tricked into eating pomegranate seeds in the Underworld. Because of this, she was bound to spend part of every year below ground as Queen of the Dead, before returning to her mother each Spring. Her story became a mythic explanation for the seasons, but it’s also about moving between worlds: life and death, innocence and experience, light and shadow.

That’s the High Priestess energy in a nutshell (or a pomegranate rind): she sits in the threshold, guiding us into the darkness so we can return with new knowledge. As Sawyer puts it: “As we descend into the depths, we are brought rhythmically through situations that may seem familiar, yet we get to see them again through fresh eyes.”

I love the Empress here as a literal cornucopia, overflowing with fruit, wheat, and abundance. It’s such a neat way of capturing her essence: she’s not just about fertility in the narrow sense, but about the pleasures and gifts of the natural world spilling over. In my Empress post I talk about her as Demeter, the goddess of harvest, patience, and nurture, the one who knows that you can’t rush the wheat to ripen. The cornucopia image folds all of that in: generosity, cycles, and the promise of nourishment.

What I especially enjoy in Sawyer’s art here is that it avoids reducing her to a womb or a figure of motherhood alone. Instead, she’s a vessel of plenty – lush, sensual, and earthy – reminding us to delight in what we’re given as much as what we give. It’s Empress energy at its best: abundance that flows both ways, and the wisdom to know that good things take their time to ripen.

The Lovers card is a stunner. At its centre is an anatomically correct heart, pulsing with all the messy, embodied reality of love. Around it, Sawyer has woven in the key RWS symbols: the snake, the fire, the angel’s wings; but reimagined with real flair. My favourite touch? The tree from the RWS Lovers becomes a branching system of veins, rooting and connecting everything together. It’s perfection: desire and choice, body and spirit, bound in one image.

I love the Hermit’s eye view in this deck – it pushes the lantern to the foreground, reminding us that the light matters more than the man who carries it. The Hermit himself is, in some ways, beside the point. His personal identity is secondary; what endures is his wisdom, his learning, and the illumination he offers the world.

The coldness of the landscape is also emphasised in Sawyer’s card. Many Hermits are shown standing in snow or against snow-capped mountains, and here that symbolism sings. Snow is clean, crisp, and quiet, a blank canvas for introspection. It suggests a mind stripped of the world’s noise, pared back to stillness. And yes, snow is cold, too: the Hermit has stepped away from the warmth of passion and relationships, not because he doesn’t feel, but because he knows that wisdom sometimes requires retreat from the heat of entanglement.

Anyone who reads this blog will know I have an ongoing love affair with Biblically accurate angels, and this Temperance delivers. Multi-winged, radiant, and just the right side of uncanny, it’s a gorgeous reminder that balance and harmony aren’t always soft and fluffy. Sometimes they’re awe-inspiring and otherworldly.

The Moon card here shows an eerie eclipse, and I love it. Some Tarot writers have suggested that the RWS, as well as earlier decks, depict not just a full moon but a moon-on-top-of-a sun: a solar eclipse. It makes sense, because what could be more unsettling than night falling in the middle of the day? Plus an eclipse often reveals as much as it hides – it is the one time we can clearly see the solar flares that are usually invisible to the eye. The Moon is about things shrouded in darkness, yes, but also about seeing things (wonderous, magical things) that would never dare to show themselves in the harsh light of day. As Sawyer explains, “the moon may be small in comparison to the sun, but it wields the power to step fully into the path, blocking everything else out. The darkness can be all consuming for a brief moment”.

The Four of Wands as giant sparklers is such a perfect touch. It captures the joy, celebration, and sense of shared festivity that this card radiates, which is no mean feat to do on a card without any people! It’s pure sparkle-in-the-dark energy, the kind of light you gather around with others to mark a milestone or simply revel in the moment.

The Knight of Wands is on fire. Literally. His face is a blaze of flame, perfectly capturing the card’s restless, combustible energy. Out of the fire emerges a salamander, untouched by the heat, reminding us of resilience and transformation. And then there are the little details I love most: look closely at his helmet and you’ll see a tiny horse sketched in, standing in for the steed of tradition. Gorgeous!

The Six of Cups as a child’s mobile is super cute, and it works beautifully for this card. Nostalgia, innocence, and the joy of simple pleasures are all wrapped up in that image of childhood wonder gently turning overhead.

The Nine of Cups as a genie’s lamp is a stroke of genius, the perfect image for the “wish-fulfilment” card. It’s clever and playful, reminding us that our heart’s desires are within reach, just waiting to be released.

The Knight of Cups also wears his horse on his helmet, but his is a SEAhorse, natch. AND HE’S JUST SO BEAUTIFUL!

The Two of Swords as a veiled mirror is such a striking choice. It speaks to the frustration of having to make a decision without being able to see things clearly. The suit of Swords hates this – it craves precision and clarity – but sometimes life doesn’t offer us the full picture. And in waiting too long for certainty, we risk stagnating.

The Eight of Swords nails the point that this is the suit of the mind. Here we’re shown a prison of our own making, with the brain itself literally (and figuratively) trapped by the Swords of negative thought cycles. It’s a sharp (lol) reminder that sometimes the cage is mental, not physical.

In short, the Felt Tarot is another triumph from Jamie Sawyer: tactile, clever, and full of soul. You can really tell she came to Tarot through the tattoo world: her cards are so smart you’d never get bored of looking at them, even if you saw them on your arm every day, lol – every detail looks designed to live in the skin as much as on the card. Honestly, if you’re ever considering a Tarot-themed tattoo (with Sawyer’s permission, of course), this deck would be an incredible sourcebook – the designs are so classy and versatile.

You can pick up the Felt Tarot for $68 here. It’s a deck that manages to be approachable for beginners, rewarding for experienced readers, and inspiring for artists.

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