about

A bit about me

Hello, I’m Fran. It’s so lovely to have you here, please make yourself at home.

I am a toy maker & hand spinner, living in the mountains of South Western France. My work is all about exploring slow & sustainable creativity through the medium of wool, one project at a time.

 

I love knitting hand-spun woolly jumpers and stomping about in puddles on rainy days. I’m drawn to wild & windswept landscapes and like nothing better than to be camping out under starry skies and waking to the smell of wood smoke. But I also love the comfort of a warming fire on a winter’s day, a piping hot cup of Redbush tea enjoyed with a freshly baked cake. And that feeling of hope that comes when casting a new knitting project on my needles.

I share my life with my French husband, our little boy and a new baby on the way. We live in a traditional stone house in the mountains of the French Pyrenees. Together, we’re crafting a quiet life here in the countryside. A life anchored in the seasons, and lived slowly and wholeheartedly.

A bit about Woollen Hearted

Woollen Hearted is the name I’ve settled upon for my little home studio & all that is created within it’s walls. It is here in this sunny little room overlooking our garden that I immerse myself in wool craft, at an intentionally slow pace, in those snatched quiet moments between homemaking & mothering a growing toddler.

Whether spinning, knitting, natural dyeing or toy making, my work with wool is motivated by a deep rooted love for the natural world surrounding me. From the towering peaks to the silent beech forests, the infinite skies overhead to the raging, foaming sea on a winter’s day. Every weather pattern, every leaf and flower, cloud formation is a source of solace, peace and inspiration. An invitation to seek balance and a more mindful, slow-paced way of living. As a maker, I respond to that invitation through wool. 

If my work is inspired by the mountains that provides the raw materials, it is also driven by a deep rooted desire to help sustain and reinvigorate the local wool industry and perpetuate and pass down traditional artisanal techniques and ways of working with wool.

Woollen Hearted is also the name for this little journal. Within its pages, I hope to find a place to catch my breath & gather my thoughts. To talk about my making and to delight in slow & sustainable creativity, with wool that’s been grown, gathered, and crafted in these Breton green hills: hand-spun on spindle & wheel, dyed with plants, knitted on my needles, stuffed into teddy bears. It is also a place to document the gentle path (back) towards sustainable self employment.

I’m so happy you found your way here. Have a cup of tea, grab your knitting & stay a while, won’t you?

Warmly, Fran x