Hand-felted toys, leads and blankets in regional organic wool.
A dog called Smilla kept stealing the children's felt juggling balls. So someone made her a set of her own: too soft at first, then firm enough to throw properly after a good deal of trial and error. Neighbourhood dogs took an interest, and the small workshop in Oldenburg in Holstein started making them in earnest.
The wool comes from shepherds in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Schleswig-Holstein, visited in person to see the animals and the conditions on the ground. It is never the reason the flocks exist: it comes off the back of landscape grazing, milk and meat, and would otherwise go unused. It arrives with bits of grass still in it, is washed over several days in rainwater, dried, opened in a Wollwolf and carded into an even fleece. Then come the twisted cord, the knitted net, the wool packed into a ball, the label, and the tight felting that makes a piece dense enough to stand up to a dog's teeth. Every item goes through a test wash before it leaves.
The range is short and plain: balls from four to eight centimetres, tug and chew toys, felted leads and collars with nickel-free stainless steel fittings, thick blankets for dogs and cats. Hemp cords, natural shades or low-pollutant dyes, second-hand cartons. All of it biodegradable, apart from the balls built around a recycled tennis ball.
Because it pays its shepherds several times the wholesale rate, goes to look at the flocks itself, and answers the durability question with a flat "yes and no" rather than a promise. And because a battered toy can be mended in a 60°C wash: the wool felts back together and the thing goes round again.
