I knew I was going to like Steffi Stern, the founder of the natural products needle-felting specialist, The Makerss, when she started telling me about her love for an early morning. When your late afternoon zoom call comes with the caveat “I may fall asleep, I’ve been up since 4am,” you know you’re about to have one of those rare occasion of chatting with someone cut from the same cloth.
“It’s a time when there are no disturbances… it’s like other people don’t know these hours exist and they are all mine,” Steffi confesses.
Of course, backing onto the Forest of Dean – an expanse of natural beauty straddling the England-Wales border – means that Steffi’s early mornings are unlike most others’, a point she reminds herself of daily when she goes out to bathe herself (as well as regular members of her local Facebook Group, Everyone a Maker) in the sights and sounds of her natural surroundings.
That’s what comes with being a part of the community Steffi is building. Led by needle-craft and supported by nature, The Makerss is about “imparting knowledge and mindfulness of the natural world.” And that’s exactly what The Makerss – thanks to its successful partnership with the RSPB – is bringing to the Licensing Awards this month. Because finally, The Makerss has found itself a finalist in the Licensing Awards’ Best Sustainable Product or Initiative category.
It’s the category Steffi has been wishing to shortlist in for years. In 2023, the business placed in the Awards’ Innovation category, but, explains Steffi “it was the Sustainable Product category I always wanted.”
And that’s because Steffi lives and breathes the natural world. In fact, like rings through a tree it runs through the very DNA of her crafting business, from the materials used in her portfolio of crafting kits and the imagery and brand partnerships she engages with, to the ‘experiential’ offering her Makerss community promotes, including those regular nature walks along the Wales border.
The Magic of Sheep
Like most stories of this nature, Steffi’s started with the desire to rebel. Having been brought up around crafting as she spent her childhood in her German homeland, Steffi found herself immersed in nature from a young age. Wool, among other natural products and materials, had a constant presence and from this was sewn her ambitions to set up a craft shop that dealt only with natural products.
“It had the old ladies up in arms, that they’d come in and couldn’t get their hands on acrylic wool for knitting,” explains Steffi. “But I had and hold on to a different theory – that knitting and needle-crafting is something worth investing in.”
Steffi’s rebellious nature is an endearing quality. Early in her career, she was approached by a well-known publisher to produce a book on the art of dollmaking. But Steffi wasn’t interested in writing an entire book on that, she wanted to write about needle-felting… So, that’s what she did.
“They were actually fine about it in the end,” she laughs. “Actually, I have since written three books about needle-felting with them.”
Whether it’s old ladies with their knitting needles or publishers with their book deals, Steffi is not one to allow outside forces to derail her own pursuit. She confesses her desire to be a “pioneer of the needle-crafting industry”, by discouraging shoppers and potential hobbyists from buying into the “cheap, nasty materials and plastic tools” and instead invest in the virtues of the natural products and materials she and The Makerss team promote – this namely being, wool.
“Working with wool has been such a wonderful journey because you really appreciate the magic of what sheep create,” she enthuses. “All I have ever wanted is to share my crafting journey with others in a way that helps them appreciate the natural world and what the natural world provides.
“Nature is such a wonderful, free environment where we can all regenerate ourselves. And I have always been someone who wants to help people appreciate what they can see just by stepping outside, into their back garden. Crafting really can bring people closer to nature.”
The proof is in the felting
For evidence of that, just take a look at The Makerss partnership with the RSPB – one of the company’s most successful product ranges and certainly its most successful branded range to date. It’s Steffi’s belief that through the experience and process of needle-felting images of birds, people get to notice the littlest of details in ways they would never have done before.
“By felting, you are choosing your colours, you are adding the little stripes in here and there, the little details particular to each bird in the collection, and you are noticing all these things about the natural world,” she says. “But you’re also sharing in an experience… and that’s what you’ve paid for. You haven’t just bought a felting kit, you’ve bought a mindful experience. And if you love what you have produced by the end of it, well – that’s the bonus.”
By definition, the Makerss’ crafting kits really are putting the natural world right in the hands of the individual. The wool used within each and every kit is all UK sourced, GOTs certified (its dyed wool carries an additional EcoTex certification); the cardboard box and wooden felting hoop is all FSC certified and sourced locally to the company; all cotton used is GOTs certified, 100% organic; and the woollen felting mat made is made from a 100% recycled wool which is produced exclusively for Steffi by a small business “literally just down the road from me.” These mats, by the way – as well as their hessian core – are fully compostable.
“And I don’t mean industrially compostable,” Steffi clarifies. “I mean, you can chuck these in the back garden. They are all natural products, they will interact with nature, and they will return to nature.”
“For me, this business – and this partnership with the RSPB – isn’t just about educating about the natural world or specifically about birds,” she continues. “It’s about encouraging customers to make a conscious choice about what they’re buying.”
For all her passion for the crafting industry, Steffi has her grievances. Too many, she believes, are now jumping on the bandwagon of ‘mindfulness’ to “sell their kits” without thought or care for the community and the experience they will have in purchasing them.
“There’s a lot more cheapness and plastic out there on the market than first meets the eye,” she laments. “There are a lot of people making cheap kits, selling them cheap and throwing them on shelves. They are selling the idea that crafting is good for you, without actually making their products good for you.”
Steffi’s mindset is yet another reason the RSPB partnership is particularly special. Under her guidance and ethos, The Makerss is cautiously selective over the licensing agreements it enters. And currently, Steffi’s lean is into brands with a charitable benefactor or a purpose-led charity element to them.
“It’s taken me a while to figure out why our RSPB kits are by far our most popular,” she explains. “And it’s because of the experience it lends to people. If you needle-felt a little robin, you know it’s a little robin no matter how it turns out.
“But, if you get a recognisable character slightly wrong along the way of felting it, it looks weird… like taxidermy gone wrong. Also, the people that are fans of these charity brands, really are fans of them. They really, really want to support the brand.
“We have worked with the Cats Protection charity for a number of years, and I cannot tell you how much people really are crazy about helping cats. It’s like, if they know their money is going to these causes – whether it’s helping cats or funding nature and wildlife conservation through the RSPB, they really get behind it. It takes over any materialistic desire.”
And something tells me that an audience of nature-mindful craftspeople, free of all materialistic desire may just be Steffi’s kind of people. It’s the cloth they are all cut from.
The Makerss at Brand Licensing Europe
The Makerss’ RSPB needle-felting craft kits will be on display on the Products of Change booth (A265) at Brand Licensing Europe later this month as part of a dedicated display showcase of finalists in this year’s Licensing Awards’ Best Sustainable Product of Initiative category.
Be sure to check out this range and all other product finalists in the Best Sustainable Product or Initiative category at the Products of Change booth.
