28/09/2026
Hey,
So, Iād hoped not to have to write this letter, not because I have anything to hide, but because it felt too raw and upsetting. Unfortunately, Iāve been pushed to put something down after finding out that our situation is about to get publicised in the local press, and the last thing I want is for you to read this first from a newspaper article.
So here goes.
Ewe Felty Thing Ltd is insolvent.
As those of you who have been following the story for a while will know, we have been struggling to keep our heads above water for some time. As a consequence, I sought some specialised financial advice back in July. The upshot of that was that we were advised to close the company.
There was no way that we could have kept Ewe Felty Thing Ltd going any longer. By the end, our debt payments were equal to or larger than our wages bill each month.
For any business out there that is considering taking on extra finance ā donāt. We fell foul of the āpay a percentage of your takingsā style lending, and when sales didnāt pick up as weād expected, we were left paying 17% of whatever we took on a daily basis to our new creditor. We then had to take out different short-term finance to cover things when we couldnāt and everything spiralled.
It is no secret that things were not going well before then, but that was definitely the final nail in the coffin. By that point, we werenāt able to restock the shelves, and anything that came in was used purely for bills.
We circled the drain as long as we could, and by the end of trading we had brought as much as we possibly could up to date and had not received any āfinal noticesā or scary red letters about bailiffs.
Whilst this was going on, my health also took a turn for the worse. I fell poorly whilst away on a business advice trip back in June. After that I was barely able to be in the shop, spending most of my time on bedrest. I have ME and unfortunately sometimes it goes through a ācrashā, which it is doing at the moment.
I put my heart and soul into Ewe Felty Thing over the last 8.5 years, as have those who have worked with me, and I canāt bear to see the entire thing go. As a consequence, we were given advice on how to preserve the name legally. A new company has purchased āthe assetsā of Ewe Felty Thing. This includes the name, Woolbert, the mailing list, social media profiles and the website address.
In order to do everything properly, Ewe Felty Thing Ltd stopped trading on the 31st of August, and officially went into liquidation on the 22nd of September. The next day, the assets were purchased, and it is only after that when we have been able to start to read and reply to emails, and have access to the social media profiles etc. We couldnāt do anything from when we shut the doors to when the asset sale went through. Our āshort breakā has turned out to be almost a month.
Weāve been so grateful to the insolvency team for looking after us, and to the solicitors for making sure we do everything correctly. We have done everything as weāve been advised the whole way along, and itās been gutting.
The Ewe Felty Thing shop is hoping to reopen on the 1st of October, but it might be a day or two later. Iām still not well and so despite having some amazing and caring friends coming in and helping to get things organised, we still feel like thereās a lot to get done in only a couple of days.
The break has been what I explained it would be in my last post ā time for me to recuperate a little bit, and also time to allow us to drop two of our kids to university ā one up to Scotland and the other down to the south coast of England. It took us about 8 days in total to get everyone settled, but they are both ensconced in their halls of residence now and seem to be getting on ok.
I didnāt want to have to publicise the insolvency because I didnāt know what was going to happen, and also I didnāt want to worry anyone who has a gift card (they will be honoured!) or actually to have to find the energy to deal with messages from everyone asking how weāre doing and whatās happening etc.
I needed to ostrich for a bit.
Iām still very tired, and am writing this letter from bed.
I donāt want to let anyone down, and I donāt want to upset anyone, and I have done absolutely everything I possibly can to try and sort the situation out without it getting to this point.
But here we are.
Ewe Felty Thing Ltd has shut.
Ewe Felty Thing, the shop, will continue. I have joined the new company, and I am still around and will be as involved as my health allows, but there are definitely changes in how things are being run.
I hope that youāll continue to be involved in and support this next incarnation of Ewe Felty Thing.
Much love,
Nikki
