If you are knitter who lives in the UK, you may have purchased yarn and wool from the amazing retailer, Marriner Yarns.

This amazing wool company described its products as Britain’s oldest and best loved yarn, premium quality at unbeatable prices.

The company reared its own sheep, and as a customer of theirs, I can only agree that the yarn and wool made by Marriner was nothing short of totally yummy, and absolutely a bargain (in my opinion).

In fact, I have been trying to buy some of the famous Marriner’s famous super chunky yarn recently, and noticed that the website said ‘under maintenance’ every time I attempted to log on. After a while I thought eh? and did a bit of investigative work.

Unfortunately, it has finally been worked out that Marriner’s has gone into receivership and now ceases to trade. The company itself didn’t announce anything about this sad news to its customers, and indeed the Intagram and Facebook pages are still published as usual. There is no published information about the liquidation of the wool company whatsoever.

Customers have got together, mostly on Facebook, and managed to piece together that Marriner Yarns is tragically no more.

Read on to find out more about the Marriner Yarns liquidation and some tips about where you can find a replacement retailer.

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Marriner Yarns has gone into liquidation

If you have been trying to buy Marriner Yarns wool recently, you may have noticed that their website repeatedly announces the message ‘under maintenance’. This has been the case since December 2022, and we now know that this is because the company has sadly gone into receivership.

Customers had been getting suspicious later last year, as stocks of certain yarns were running out and not being replaced. Then the website was continually under maintenance.

It is now known that the company who owns Marriner Yarns, Shaws the Drapers, entered voluntary liquidation and ceased trading on 23 December 2022.

Shaws the Drapers had been trading across Wales and England for 110 years and ran 28 bricks and mortar stores. The stock included the wonderful Marriner yarns.

Staff were told, allegedly by email, that the company was no longer profitable and would be closing down, resulting in the loss of all of their jobs.

Where to buy yarn following the closure of Marriner Yarns

As Marriner made their own wool and yarn, you won’t be able to buy the exact same products any longer,

This is very sad. Personally, I loved their colourful mermaid range of chunky and super chunky yarns. You can see below how yummy there were!

For UK knitters, I can recommend a couple of lovely and reliable websites where you can find good alternatives to Marriner Yarn.

• The Knitting Network is a wonderful online yarn retailer. They run an awful lot of sales, and if you look at their knitting patterns you will see that a huge amount of them are available free of charge if you choose the instant download option. I have bought from here several times and have always been pleased with their wool and service. they always deliver within a couple of days. The Emu range of yarns, a British company, at The Knitting Network is really great value and well worth a look.
• The other excellent go to for a massive selection of yarn and wool of every kind is LoveCrafts. I used to live abroad and always bought my British brand wool from here. They are a fast and reliable yarn company who again stock many lovely, free knitting patterns. Well worth a look, and an excellent option for overseas knitters looking for British yarn brands such as Sirdar and King Cole. If you have never bought yarn at Lovecrafts before, you can get a £10 off your first order by using The Knitting Times special discount code.
• I have spotted this Etsy store which sells what I believe may well be Marriner Yarns super chunky and blanket range under a different label. Or at the very list, the yarn range sold here is very similar. Certainly worth a look if you are in need of some of the Marriner super chunky yarns. This store sells some lovely super chunky knitting patterns too.

It has been posted on Facebook that a company who bought up a considerable amount of the remaining stock from Marriner Yarns is auctioning most of it off on Ebay. You can find the link the link to what is left of Marriner yarn here. I am not sure whether or not this is all that is left of Marriner yarns. I would imagine bits and pieces of it will be appearing for sale until it really is no more.

You can read more about the insolvency of Shaws the Drapers here.