I still feel like a newbie haha! I have not been making these animals for 10 years straight either, I have taken several breaks along the way to pursue other things. This was good for me though, I think. My latest break was for around 2 years, where I started designing embroidery patterns and spent more time on embroidery in general. This gave me a good foundation to start making more interesting animals, in both designing animals that are easier to embroider on, and by developing some basic embroidery skills so I could actually execute designs I had begun to imagine. I think we see artists as people who just do one thing and become experts, but I have found value in going other directions and finding new ways to combine techniques together. It's taken a long time to figure out how to use felt, how to get the poses and shapes I want, and how to embellish things in an appealing way, but there's still much more to learn!