Woolplay

09/06/2026

I'm so looking forward to being @ Worstead Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers Woolyweekend and spending a weekend submerged in all things woolly with other devotees!

Woolplay will be bringing yarns from various sheep flocks in the Waveney valley, hand dyed yarns as well as rovings and tops from from the same sheep flocks

08/06/2026

Thank you to everyone who dropped by over the first weekend of Suffolk Open Studios - it was great seeing old friends and making making new acquaintances. And I'm so pleased a couple of visitors are seriously thinking about trying out weaving!

I'm open again in two weeks time if you didn't have chance to visit this time as this coming weekend I'll be in Dilham Norfolk

06/06/2026

The 2026 month of Suffolk Open Studios is here! Looking forward to welcoming you to the Woolplay Studio today to hear about what we do with wool from British sheep here in the Waveney Valley.

You can meet the sheep , learn about wool processing, watch a spinning demo and have a go at weaving. If all that sounds a bit exhausting, you can just squish yarn including natural dyed yarns and take a look at finished woven items.

04/06/2026

Just a reminder the studio will not be open today or Friday as we are participating in Suffolk Open Studios over the weekend.

As well as a programme for the weekend, there's woven items, knitting kits and hand dyed yarns to explore along with our full range of British sheep yarns and fibres.

03/06/2026

They are finished! You may recall I wove the fronts of these cushions a few weeks back but needed to weave cloth for the backs and make them up. It's taken a while but here they are - done and in place. I'm delighted with them and am certainly going to weave more log cabin patterns.

02/06/2026

01/06/2026

But isn't British wool itchy?

Is a question I hear quite a lot. I think it partly relates back to hand knitted school jumpers of yesteryear.

Certainly some British wool would be itchy if knitted into a jumper but with over 60 breeds to choose from, there are certainly plenty to choose from that are definitely soft.

Blue Faced Leicester is certainly known for being very soft and could be a good first step into British Wool. But there are plenty of others - the Down breeds (Ryeland, Dorset Down etc are renown for producing soft, bouncy yarns, Jacob and Shetland are also very suitable for jumpers, scarves, cowls etc. Gotland is also a super soft yarn. And our very own Leicester Longwools produce silky smooth or soft yarn depending on how they have been spun.

We stock a good range of yarns from breeds from which soft items can be made. Why not check out the yarn section on our website Woolplay.co.uk for your next project and be very pleasantly surprised?

30/05/2026

Sun’s out… yarn’s still out.

Because let’s be honest—just because it’s warm doesn’t mean the making stops. It just shifts a little. Lighter projects, smaller needles, maybe a shady spot in the garden instead of the sofa.

There’s something quietly satisfying about knitting in the sunshine, feeling the rhythm of your stitches while the world hums along around you. No urgency, no pressure—just making because you can.

And when the cooler days roll back in? You’ll already have something beautiful waiting.

So yes, we’re still making. Just with iced drinks nearby.

27/05/2026

We've had a fab day at the Suffolk Show today. We spent the morning watching the sheep classes as well as having a good wander round the pens looking at potential sheep breeds to add to our current offering of British sheep yarns and fibres.

The Leicester Longwools did very well in the Longwool classes with a Leicester Longwool ram
ending up as supreme champion - well done Barry and Chris!

It was also great seeing youngsters showing sheep - they are so necessary to the survival of many of rare breeds beyond the current generations of sheep breeders.

25/05/2026

With the country's sheep population being sheared at the moment, you may well be interested in or being offered a fleece or two.

Although I send most of my fleeces away to be commercially processed, I can never resist keeping a couple back to process myself. I've not got all the way from fleece to finished items, though I've plenty of spun skeins!

I know how daunting it can feel to have a raw fleece and wonder what you have to do to get to the spinning stage.

So Woolplay has just started a series of blogs to help you starting with what to look for when buying or accepting a fleece. Over the coming weeks there will be further blogs which will go through the various steps in the process to get from fleece to fibre. What you do with it afterwards is up to you!

https://www.woolplay.co.uk/post/what-to-look-for-when-you-buy-or-accept-a-fleece