Natural beauty
Marja de Haan and her colleagues at Trollenwol love to use special breed wools to design nature-inspired knits
INSPIRED BY the wild landscapes she loves, Dutch designer and yarn shop owner Marja de Haan creates intricate colourwork, such as the charming shawl in this supplement. Her work also displays her passion for pure wool, particularly those produced from traditional breeds.
Marja and her team run Trollenwol, a yarn shop in town of Driebergen, near Utrecht in the Netherlands. They stock an inspiring range from European brands including Blacker Yarns, Uradale, Ullcentrum, and Hillesvåg Ullvarefabrikk, which is spun at a historic Norwegian mill.
Marja and her co-worker Hilly van der Sluis showcase these special yarns in their playful designs inspired by Fair Isle and Nordic traditions. Their patterns are available both as knitting kits from their shop, and in their range of books. These include Öland
Breien (available in English as well as Dutch), and Shetlandic Knitting. We talked with Marja about her passion for yarn and design.
When did you begin designing?
“I started designing when I was a little girl, knitting clothes for my dolls. When I set up my shop, many years later, I quickly realised that selling yarn and following patterns from yarn companies or books wasn’t satisfying enough for me.
“At that time, I started to knit my own designs, and it became really serious when I created my ‘Öland’ shawl. I had travelled to the Swedish island of Öland to visit Ullcentrum, an important yarn supplier for Trollenwol, and I was so impressed by its landscapes that I took up my needles and knitted a colourwork shawl as a souvenir. Not so much later, I wrote my book Öland Breien ( Öland Knitting) to share my designs with other knitters; we still sell the knitting kit for this shawl to customers all over the world.”
Tell us about your shop, Trollenwol.
“In June 2019 we will have been running Trollenwol for 10 years, and we are looking forward to celebrating this milestone! It is very much a team effort; originally my colleague Hilly van der Sluis and I started designing our own range of books and kits, and later on my youngest daughter Anne joined us on our Shetlandic Knitting project. We also design patterns for Trui, the only Dutch magazine about knitting, crochet and yarn especially for Dutch crafters.
“Our books are produced in-house for the moment, and our team includes our daughters who help out with the photography, lay-out, editing and modelling. Besides them, there are three other co-workers who keep the shop going when Hilly and I are on one of our trips to yarn festivals in Shetland or Scandinavia.
“We offer a wide range of yarns and colours from Ullcentrum-Öland, Hillesvåg Ullvarefabrikk, Jamieson’s of Shetland, Uradale Yarns, Filcolana and Rowan, besides our own brands including Trollenwol Supersoft and Schaapjeswol.”
What are the most enjoyable and challenging aspects of running a yarn shop?
“The most enjoyable is the response we get from our customers who leave the shop with happy smiles because of the lovely afternoon they just have spent. The most challenging is to
make people more aware of the need to use locally produced wool which respects for humans, animals and the environment - we do hope we can have some influence on our customers about this belief.”
Can you tell us more about the stories behind your pattern books?
“We have published several books, and we started with two books about Swedish yarn and design. After that, we fell in love with Shetland and its famous wool. We love working with Jamieson’s of Shetland, because of their unbelievable range of colours. We are also passionate about the organic Shetland wool produced by Uradale Yarns. We have honoured these two wonderful brands in our book Shetlandic Knitting.”
You have worked closely with the Shetland producer Uradale - what do you particularly admire about its yarn?
“Uradale Farm produces organic wool which has a softness even beyond Shetland wool standards, and which is produced on one farm on Scalloway, from a single flock of Shetland sheep. The fact that the team is passionate about working in the most environmentally friendly way, and that it has been spun in the wonderful World Heritage Centre of New Lanark, make it even more special. If we are using woollen yarn that is produced in the way Uradale Farm is doing, we are knitting a garment that will have one of the lowest possible impacts on the environment, and which is supporting animal welfare, too.”
Do you have a favourite design from your portfolio?
“Besides the ‘landscape’ shawls I like to knit, I love my Shetland Sweater the most, because it is wearable for so many different people and in so many colour combinations. One of my proudest moments was when, just by accident, I overheard someone at the Edinburgh Yarn Festival saying that she thought the Shetland Sweater was the most beautiful design she’d seen at the festival.”
Do you have any plans for 2019 that you can share with us?
“Yes, we have! Hilly and I are both (separately this time) working on new books. Mine will be about landscape shawls, and Hilly’s will be about mittens. We are using a range of Uradale yarns in both books, which will be released in early spring.
“We are also working on a book based on our special Dutch brand, Schaapjeswol. The yarn is sourced from a flock living near Trollenwol - a very rare Dutch breed called Schoonebekers. Their wool is at the moment being spun for us by the excellent Natural Fibre Company in Cornwall, and we expect it back in our shop this winter.” - Discover more about Trollenwol’s yarns, patterns, books and kits at www.trollenwolweb.nl/en_GB/