John Arbon Textiles - Ep. 79 - Fruity Knitting

welcome to fruity knitting this is episode 79 I'm Andrew and I'm Andrea and we're really pleased to be with you again this week we think we've got another fantastic show lined up yes John Arbon is a UK national treasure because over the last three years that we've been interviewing key figures in the handling industry we've repeatedly heard knowledgeable people praise John urban for his unique spinning knowledge and his ability just to create brilliant yarns so John and Juliet who is his wife have a small-scale spinning mill in Devon in the UK which has been built from restored vintage milling equipment and some of it's over a hundred years old you'll get to see a lot of this milling equipment it's really beautiful actually so what makes John urban textiles so special is the depth of knowledge and passion that he brings into his work he's got a ton of degrees in printing in textiles and apparel majoring in in spinning and knitting and also fashion textiles he's had research grants that have taken him to places like Guatemala for backstrap weaving or to Japan to look at the technology in creating bespoke knitwear from body scanning which sounds really kind of crazy so he really holds a unique body of knowledge which makes him heavily sought-after by designers and sheep farmers to make them they're perfect yarn and in our interview John shares some of his amazing yarn making secrets with us which is super cool but we think you're really going to enjoy the interview because apart from all of the knowledge that you'll learn both John and Julia are really down to earth funny people and extremely likeable so it is a really fun interview and then we go to baden-baden which is here in Germany to meet a bespoke shoemaker in our maker series so Matthias Vickerman is going to show us that art and fine craftsmanship of hand making a pair of custom shoes from a piece of tandel right to the final shiny pair of shoes which actually last the owner upwards of 25 years and we think that's that's low fashion yeah that is amazing he also shows me how I should properly care for my favorite Australian made leather boots so that's also a lot of fun we're heading to London to meet the talented knitwear designer and teacher Natalie Warner as our guest in knitter's of the world we're going to be announcing the winners of our Martin story cow but right now we're going to give the usual updates on our own hand knitting projects yeah we're going to start with me on my project which is the st. lunaire greek' by jennifer bill here it is here there's not a lot of work being done on it but it is knit on very small needles at a gauge of 32 stitches so it is going to take me quite a while it's I'm doing it on the with the nature's luxury yarn which is 50% wool 30% silk and 20% camel it's a beautiful yarn blend and I'm very happy with it and I'm doing I'm alternating skeins as you have to do with hand dyed yarn which I really don't like just conscientious of yourself I'm really impressed well I think if you're gonna use really good quality yarn you know that costs a bit you've got to you've got to do your best you can't sort of mess around on that so it I have to say even though it's gonna take me a while to knit and it's knitted on very small needles it is an easy knit and it's a simple construction and easy to memorize patterns so it's not difficult it's knitted in the round bottom up so you do the the body and the sleeves separately to the underarms and then you join it all together and you work the yoke in one piece there is a hem which is split at both sides on the body you can see that there so you're actually going to knit the front and the back of hem separately in the flat first and then you join it in the round but I think the real special details about this design is the patterning that sheet that Jennifer uses all over it so I want to show you some close-up pictures in so you can really see how beautiful the patterning is and how it looks really fantastic with this yarn so you can see that the textured patterning on the hem is very pretty with the yarn this section is really slow to knit in a way because to create the texture you purl two stitches together and then before you drop those stitches off the left-hand needle you knit two together into the same two stitches so that's a little bit tedious but it does create is really lovely bubbly texture which I think looks fantastic with a variegated yarn and then the main body of the sweater has an all-over variation of a basket weave pattern with little eyelets and that's really easy to memorize but the very special design detail is the twisted stitch cables that run up both sides from the split hem to the underarm and also down the inside of the sleeves it's a really beautiful sort of delicate twisted stitch diamond cable and it's done on a background of reverse stocking stitch and what I think is really interesting is that Jennifer has got those twisted stitch diamond cables to meet up or match up exactly at the underarm so you've got a panel coming up the inside of the body and the panel coming up the inside of the sleeve and the little diamond points meet exactly at the underarm and that would take a lot of effort to grade through multiple sizes I think yes that's a real achievement yeah it's not just mechanical yeah that's amazing but I love that little detail and actually if you look at a lot of Jennifer's designs you'll see that she has these beautiful little details hidden in quite intimate places which gives the garment a bit of mystery I think little surprises yeah cuz you're not gonna sort of walk around like this but if you do sort of lift your arm up and have a bit of a scratch and another knitter looks and thinks oh my goodness those diamonds are matching yeah something is going to stop you in the street under here or another you know dressmaker or somebody who knows that these lovely details yeah cuz that's that Nina dress making that's kind of standard to look at how patterns yeah meet up on the scenes it's what makes something beautiful and it doesn't to be in an obvious spot having it in a in a unusual spot where you think you could get away with it but it's actually really beautiful I think adds value and mystery to the garments so well done Jennifer I think that I think I really enjoy those details so jennifer has designed the sweater with about seven centimeters or three inches of positive ease and I'm playing around with that the pattern says to start on the sleeves and then do the body and I'm starting on the body first and the reason why I'm doing that is that I need to know how much positive ease I'm going to end up with across the chest because that'll determine how narrow I do my sleeves and the stitch count of my body chest and my combined with my upper arms will determine how deep I'll end up having my yoke and and how I'll work the yoke so that's why I'm starting with with the body so as I said she's doing it with quite a lot of positive ease and I whenever I do it a garment I do try to modify it to suit my body type in the best way that I know how to and as I've mentioned before my hips and bum area is quite a lot bigger than my upper body so you're talking about your curves again if I don't put in just a slight bit of waist shaping I can look a bit like a triangle no there is nothing wrong with triangles but triangles are very important they are very structurally they're very important but I prefer to look less like a dramatic triangle so I'm just putting a little bit in now normally of course I would put it in the side seams but Jennifer has this stunning cable design down there and I don't want to mess up that and I also don't want to put any decreases in the basket weave patting on either side of the cable because that would also mess up the look of it I think it wouldn't look so neat and pretty so I'm gonna do all my waist shaping well I have done my waist shaping simply through changing needle sizes so if you can help me you know I started off with a size three millimeter down the bottom and that gave me a gauge of about 28 stitches four foot ten centimeters and then I went down to 2.75 and then to point five and then 2.25 I'm finally on to millimeter needles which is giving me a gauge of about 33 or 34 stitches and that's just giving me a just a very slight gentle tapering effect but it always amazes me how much a quarter of a millimeter difference will make a needle size you know over the width when you take the whole circumference yep it's it really is an amazing thing isn't it yep things that up so you have to do a swatch if you want something to fit you perfectly it just shows you you really have to swatch yeah but anyway so working on the body with chat by changing needle sizes has actually given me like a big piece of material that's worked as a massive gauge swatch yeah because like I said I'm bigger around the hip so I'm not going to increase back out to the same width is what I started on down here but I'll know exactly the needle size to use to give me the ease that I want here and that's also going to help me choose the needle size for how I'm going to do my sleeves because this that the design has got three-quarter length sleeves and because Jennifer's doing it with a with quite a loose fit she hasn't put any shaping in her sleeves so the circumference of the of the cuff of the sleeve is the same as the circumference of that upper arm I'm not going to do that I'm going to do mine slightly tapered and I will know how to do that based on what I've done on the body so that that'll be really helpful for me there and if I show you a picture now of Jennifer's design you can see that it has a fare our motive around the yoke now I may need to shorten the yoke above the patterning because mine's going to be all over and more fitted so I'll have to figure out how to do that and I might also need to start my decreasing in the ferrule pattern earlier and again I might have to do that by knitting the top third of the ferrule patterning in a smaller needle size but I don't actually need to know any of that yet until I've done my body and my sleeves up to the armhole so that's the update on my saintil uno de que very good my current project is the Miura cow by olga maria calf alien i found it good that you said that your project is a really easy knit andrea why well because in my world this is a really easy knit it is a very simple pattern in it it fits my mental capacities and energy right now very well so i'm enjoying it i'm knitting it out of the leftover yarn from one of your projects andrea the nightingale which is designed by nora gone the yarn is the aberdeen 3 ply by Alice d'amour in the Pebble Beach colorway look at that it is a really beautiful callaway there yeah I'm not sure he's gonna get this this product this beautiful cowl when it's finished I actually looked up in the dictionary the definition of cowl and that was interesting it is actually a male garment although generally in the Knitting well that seems a female thing it is a male gamete well it's unisex yeah yeah okay anyway in the dictionary a cowl refers to a thing it has a hood yeah but then it comes down into a cloak sort of thing that it's a closed cloak and traditionally it was worn by monks and also nuns like a poncho it's kind of like a poncho with a hood in Wikipedia they have a reference you know see also and then it goes to hoodie and if you're looking in those sorts of references there's nothing that refers to something like this a garment like this so essentially the Knitting world has a very own definition of hell yeah so you're actually meant to be a religious garment yeah and look completely different to what I'm making here so I'm not sure he's gonna get it I'll show you a close-up of the the patterning on this olga in the design the patent does recommend that you use needles which are slightly smaller than the needles which are specified for the yarn that you're using and the reason for that is to bring out the the design and the edges a bit stronger and I've done Errol Ella Graham that's right I've done that and it does work and I think the parallelograms here coming out really beautifully you sort of get the shadowing around the edges and it looks really cool so I'm really enjoying it I'm just a bit over halfway there's meant to be eight repeats of this vertical pattern here I've done five and a bit so I should be finishing this week and I'm a little bit nervous about that because I think andrey has been nice and giving me an easy relaxed project in this but I suspect there's a bigger challenge coming for me yes you my name's Natalie I didn't so much to get into knitting as Nathan got into me I grew up in a family of people who very he or just making noodle crafts and tailoring so basically I had no escape my great-grandma was a machinist for Marks and Spencers when they used to have UK manufacturing as a girl right from being my mum and grandma always made clothes for me my grandma did most of the next thing my mom did most of the sewing and so most of the stuff that was my favorites ware and things that my mom and grandma had made after a couple of what looked like wrong turns in retrospect I currently work as a teacher at Moody college teaching garment construction or clothes making and they also design knitwear for knitting magazine which is published by and GMC so what I try to do with both of those is to create a kind of creative escape for people who come to my classes in the unit or who knit my patterns because they need a creative outlet or they just want to put their own stamp on things or create something for their wardrobes that suits them rather than having to rely on mass market stuff doesn't fit them very well I always try to design knitwear will choose sewing projects that fit seamlessly into people's lives in my opinion good design should be as beautiful as it is functional when something is really well designed it just fits seamlessly into your life you don't have to think about adjusting it or configuring it or anything like that it just works for you and you can just be yourself so first thing they talk to you about is my very first jumper here I've learned to sew before I learn how to knit and this garment was very first thing I ever knitted miles in my I think late teens and I made this and this was a bit of a rite of passage because you know need to get that sense of what it takes to complete something you just need to start somewhere and just get to the end that you know what you having you to get something made and so I'm really proud of this he has a few slightly ropey details my cert my seams obviously have improved a lot since then I just over cast this because that was all I could really figure out how to do but it is still in one piece and it just reminds me that you know I'm teaching beginners that you know this is a big milestone for them and this reminds me of how I felt at the time when I made my first jumper so this second one is scenic called little waterfalls and this was one of my earlier designs finishing magazine which was published in August 2014 I love this one because it has a good memory for me and designing so I discovered the pattern by accident in a way I was trying to get that all conveying a sense of movement through having these quite sharp decreases in the pattern and the dance a bit came about by accident and I was casting off the swatch because I often boards of them with gutter but it gave the pattern lift that I needed because I was really unhappy that it was looking quite flat and one-dimensional wasn't conveying the sense of running water that I wanted once I am hit upon that and thought that striking it would be a really lovely way to go I decided that it was going to be a garment that was going to have a really simple shape just this you know dominating and just let the pattern do the talking so this third design of my love chosen here is one of my most recent for knitting magazine and is called the nosed a cardigan included this one because this was probably technically speaking my most challenging design to date you can see here that's got a really nice panel of flow is going up the center fronts when I was creating the pattern those were in particular about where I wanted them to fall for each size I mean it to be exactly the same because the square neck was really important the pattern cutting teacher I had was quite other thing about necklines because they framed clothes and so when I'm designing anything I'd like to just you know use a neckline that's really flattering so because of the own placement it meant that breathing it was bit and it took a lot of trial and error and mistakes that's you know I had to go through in order to get it the way I wanted however you know some people it might just look like an ordinary vintage style cardigan but to me it was something really important because it just showed that you know there's always a way to get what you want when you're designing when you have an idea in mind so this last one I'm gonna hold up he's my favorite design for knitting and it was also my very first front cover as well so this is the bully sweater which was on the cover in I think it was about May 2017 and the brief was for nineteen forties which I really like of the decade in fashion generally and when I was putting this together and everything inside told me that it was a good design but nobody was interested at the time so it had to wait about three years before anyone liked it so once Christine the others here at nixing in fact yep this is perfect I thought yes finally someone is interested and then but there was another hurdle when I had to call her one too literal because the original yarn I wanted which was a double net wasn't available so let's go through another bit of you know more hardship but difficulty getting trying to find a yarn that would work with good stitch definition but we got there and it's on the cover which is this one here and there they both are so a really proud moment for me and a milestone for me as far as designing which misses Thank You Natalie for your beautiful contribution there I can imagine that Natalie would be a really great teacher patient and encouraging particularly for beginning knitters what I saw there is that she is still very much in touch with what it's like to be a beginner I love the way she pulled out the first government that she hadn't recognized what an achievement that is yeah it's cool it is you need to recognize you sometimes you get frustrated with you get frustrated and then I have to point out how beautiful it is actually yeah yeah yeah I also thought she's got a really strong basis with the training and the work that she's done what is it as a pattern cutter you're dressmaking as well yeah yep I could imagine her students totally enjoy her classes and I hope you all saw the lovely way shaping detail that she had on both of those vintage garments that she designed and also when you saw the the cable flower not the flower cables that ran straight up panels yeah straight into the the square collar that was done perfectly to the stitch if you just go back and have a look at that how exact that was that would have been really hard to grade yep extremely hard to grade that's that's an amazing achievement actually yeah very cute so thanks Natalie now we have a year-long crochet along as many of you know and there's been fantastic projects entered into that crochet along and people have been inquiring about my own project how that's coming along so I thought I'll give you the quickest update the new viewers I am actually a very inexperienced crochet ER in fact I would call myself a beginner and I first was motivated to learn crochet because of Murray Wallens design she incorporates crochet in her NetWare designs in a stunning way to a stunning effect but I didn't actually get around to doing anything about that idea until we interviewed Janie crow the the UK crochet designer and then I decided to tackle probably one of her most challenging heirloom blankets to teach myself how to crochet so it's a massive project I want to show you a picture of it here it's called bohemian blooms and it uses a selection of beautiful row and yarns now it is a crazy thing for a beginner to do but it is technically possible because the way she designs her heirloom blankets is you start off with the easiest section and then each section gets progressively harder and builds on the skills that you've already learned until you end up doing extraordinary is beading and baubles and overlay and all kinds of difficult things and it's just saying that's a really stunning looking blanket so I've given myself a ridiculous challenge I do expect it to take me well over a year but I'll tell you what I've done so far you have seen these side panels and there were four of them they were very tedious for me to do not because they're difficult but because you've got striping and you've got all these ends to weave in but I'm I've finished the four of them and that's great and but they are easy for a beginner because you're only starting off with a UK double crochet so any of the terminology that I'm you saying now is all UK terms just not to confuse you so this is all just double crochet so you get a ton of practice in double crochet and then at the end you have this surface stitch in that pink which is very pretty that's also very easy to do so for long outside panels is the first thing you have to do next you have to do out of these tiny little squares here and they're going to be corner blocks is eight of them for various different wider panels so there's a whole lot of sections in this and that the most challenging thing with this blanket I'm finding so far is making sure that each of my pieces are the correct size that they're meant to be because you have to think of it like a huge big jigsaw puzzle that they all the pieces need to be the correct size so when it's finally put together it lays flat and even and that's been a challenge for me I as you know I often knit at a tight gauge I like the look of a firm fabric and it's been a challenge for me too loosen my crochet up because my natural instinct is to think that it looks too loose or not neat enough I like a look of a neat stitch so the very first one I did here it hasn't got the outside ring on it but it was about 2 centimeters too small so that I my goodness I'm gonna have to just loosen up here so I have done that now back to showing you one of the neatest ones so I have to say I am a little bit disappointed with how my crochet looks I don't think it's particularly neat but that's just part of being a beginner and I'm just gonna live with it anyway so the stitch is involved here ok so let me tell you how to do eight of them and in order for me to try to make sure that the eight are all the same size I started off with doing the inner circle eight times and I've got you know circle in a circle right yeah see it's a square and it has an inner circle yeah so I'll very quickly tell you the stitches because I am as a beginner quite proud of learning different stitches it's basically just using a UK double crochet and a UK treble crochet and then you do this fancy back post stitch in the dark pink around the outside so there's eight of those all the same size very happy and then you turn those little circles into still looking for a neat one here you turn those circles into a square by adding little corners to them and that is you're just doing progressively longer stitches so you've got the double crochet then the half treble then the treble and then the double treble and that gives it that that's sort of progressively longer stitch which makes it into an edge and then we've got double crochet around the outside I've done four of them fairly pleased with them just got four more to go that was actually a nice relief because it wasn't as exhausting yet but you can start to see the color it's gonna be a very you know beautiful elegant sort of colorway you four colors yeah yeah yeah it's gonna be lovely so that's nearly finished and what comes after that is a section of wider panels that involve quite a lot of techniques so you've got apparently you've got fancy wavy stitches in there lots of different colors and there's baubles and there's also beading so it'll be my next challenge show you down yeah let's go meter but I thought I'd just pop in there to show you that I haven't given up it's still coming and the cow runs until January until January yeah or longer so you might extend it so anyone who want this is an opportunity for anyone to just slowly get into crochet to expand your skills start with an easy project easier than mine if you want to no problem at all a dishcloth and then eventually get to something quite bizarre and challenging you my name is Matias I make shoes some of you all know the expression stick to your knitting meaning stay within your area of expertise in German the corresponding expression is just applied by China and Iceland which we can translate as shoemaker stick to your lasts and this here is a pair of lusts and it's one of a big collection that we can see behind me what's fascinating to me is that this pair of lusts actually is an exact replica of somebody's feet so we're gonna look at the last in a little bit more detail in a moment but right now Matias can you tell me how you got interested in the craft of shoemaking the most important thing from years that you can produce something with your hands from the first step until the last step and you can leather is a very nice material where I can work with and the feet is very interesting it's very it's not so easy like a hand the feet is very sensitive and all the biomechanic there are a lot of things you have to think about it's not only producing the show you have to think about the walking and yeah that's one of the most thing what I prefer off this job yeah and tell us about the training that you did to become a shoemaker yeah first of all I want the job for two years and then I decided to do it for my own in my own business and it's now 15 years ago and yeah the very funny way and the first year we produce 17 pairs of shoes and now we are producing one pair per day something like that okay who are you main customers what sort of people come in buy shoes from you yeah we've got three different types of customers 20% of the customers have got a problem to find shoes or to pay take the one leg is a little bit longer or the feet is smaller they've got this kind of problems 10% they want to have individual shoes yellow one yellow boots I don't know something like that yeah and the most of the clients and this is the the important they laughter handcrafted they want to come every time in some weeks again and I wanted to see how we produce a pair of shoes and yeah that's a good way of working with this kind of customer can you walk us through the process from the piece of tanned leather right up to the finished pair of shoes so at the beginning we are starting with the measurement of the lead the client is stepping in a foam and this is where we can see the rally F of the bottom of the feet for the automatic inside so then we're taking a pencil and make the lines around the feet to see what kind of feet we've got in front and we take the measurements around the feet to get it in the third dimension so this is the measurement at the beginning then we start producing a pair of last and the last we are using four for the test shows that's the next step the test shows is very easy built shoe and the client can walk with them for two weeks and after the time the sweat is making an imprint inside we're getting the usuals back cut them off and we can see how good was the fitting okay when everything is fine then we start producing the upper leather and it's the client can room can choose what kind of shoe he wants to have and then we are getting and cutting off of the leather and stitch them and this upper leather is going down here in the workstation and that we are producing the shoes so the first steps of the shoe production here downstairs is that we pull the leather over the last that is the outside lever the inside leather the front cap and the back cap when everything is pulled over the last we make the frame around and then it will be hand-stitched all around the shoe then we fill it off with cork material and the the both leather swords at the end the put on the the heel and when everything is finished we pull out the the whole last polishing the shoes and then it will be ready and that's totally for a pair of shoes two or three months okay and how many hours work is that in total thirty five thirty to thirty five okay you're obviously working a lot with leather do you get to work with leather ass from the region or where does it come from and what sort of leather do you actually use so the most of the leather what we are using is calf leather from the cuff and it's very good it's good for the winter for summer it's good for cleaning it's it's a leather where you can produce a pair of shoes where people can walk with it for 20-25 years and this is coming here from France from Germany and from Austria people's feet change over time they might put on weight or take off weight or I think even just with aging your feet can change if a customer of yours has bought a pair of shoes and they should be lasting 20 to 25 years what can you do if their feet do change in some way okay when a client is calling us after some years and wants to have another pair of shoes and he says I've got a problem with my small teeth here at the side then we are taking the shoes change it inside take the inside soil out and put a little bit more cork on it or walk away and when we change the existing shoe then we are taking the last and changing the last also when it's an update and when when your feet is changing the last is also changing not everyone can afford custom-made shoes so if what advice would you give somebody who is wanting to buy a pair of standard shoes for men shoe is it's very easy I would everytime say that the people should buy shoes a good year where to choose no because you can repair it for a long of time for a long of years and you have to pay about 200 250 euros for this kind of shoes and I would go to Auto paddock to buy a pair of auto panic inside soles okay and this combination I think that they've got a good pair of shoes for a good price and that gives you the beautiful fit yeah that's right yeah great so I've taken off my boots actually these are my RM Williams my favorites an old Australian brand I really love them but I'm not sure that I'm looking after them properly so Matthias can you give us a few tips yes of course and rocks so the most important thing is to use the shoe tree yeah yeah the biggest danger for the leather is the sweat of the feet yeah and so a shoe field shoe tree made of wood and not a Polish foot because it had to be dry to take all the sweat this is the most important thing that the shoe has got a long life now and after the whole day when you walked in the shoes and the evening you put in the shoe tree and this is the most important thing that the all the sweat what is inside is getting in the wood then we've got leather soles it's another good tip to put the shoes at the evening on the side that the sole also can get Drive and this both things are very important for I think 70 percent of the whole shoe polishing right that's the first step then when you want to polish your shoes this is the frame so the most of the shoe cream you have to put in in this small area some people use something like this to put a shoe cream on it but then it's so difficult to come inside okay and so that's the reason why we take something like this not a small brush that's from the hair of the pig and this is for you get the type ROM and the dark brown shoe cream that attacks another important thing is that you use of eggs without silicon because silicon is making the leather very shiny but it the leather is getting drive because it's like glue and then it's closed and it's can't breathe and so it's very important to take a shoe cream what doesn't has silicon Vincent first of all I start here and put the shoe cream all around at this area here all around the frame okay so both shoes you made met that you don't have any shiny area on the upper leather yep so and after that step that it's very important the most of the people make a big mistake that take the brush and polishing and polishing so yeah but with polishing it's getting a little bit more hot and wet and you you only put it away but at the end it the rest is on the lever so you make another step you take a small cloth and then and not polishing money to put the leather what the skin doesn't need then put it away like this and then you see this black shoe cream what you see here this is what what it's what it was too much yeah and when you make this it's getting more easy and a better result and when you take the brush at the end for polishing and so this is a very important step yeah only to put away the data what the skin doesn't need and now we're taking a brush and this perps is made from the air of a goat okay now you can take the classical the cheapest one or the East one is this year what the pig then that's very typical from the horse and the best one is from the God when you feel it is so soft and it was it's very soft and very close then you've got a very good and easy result of the shoe polisher so yeah take this bit and in the brush and then to polish sorry here we go so I'm sped on my brush and I'm giving a matte polish what's this pitfall so this bit for is when we put the the shoe cream away with the clothes yeah everything is a little bit dry right so it's more easy when there is a little bit spit on it to refresh it again to make a little bit more soft and then you are polishing so long that you don't see the spit again on the leather our carrots for better results and it's they're a little bit easier for the polishing looking beautiful here hey yeah I think so yeah that's good thanks you might remember around the beginning of May that we spent a couple of days in baden-baden for our 21st wedding anniversary which was really lovely yeah we did take the opportunity to get some extra material for the show and that's the interview that you've just seen I really enjoyed meeting Matias very passionate and skilled yeah we thought that it's Han make us ourselves you'd really appreciate getting to see other special makers and craftspeople it's it's a real privilege to see inside their world I think yeah and it was very interesting all of the the different Harry brushes wasn't it yeah the goats hair or pigs hair yeah yeah totally unexpected yeah I have to say and now that you're the official well you know how to properly care for beautiful leather shoes you should be the official bit cleaner now now I'm a qualified shoe cleaner yeah I can see there's a queue growing dance I've got a few pairs of shoes that really do need some loving care there's some skills yeah skilled loving care okay so it's now time for us to thank our wonderful patrons who through their financial support are really making the show available for everyone to watch we do have to remind you that fruity knitting is a business it is now going to be full-time work for Andrew as well as me and we have decided to stay independent so we're not receiving financial support from advertising or from sponsorship and we also don't earn an income on the side through selling anything like yarn or patterns so we are totally dependent on our patrons support for this show to continue so if you are watching we do ask you to go to that take the time and go to the patreon site to become a patreon it's you can do so for a small amount and your contribution really makes a difference for us to be able to continue so thank you very much yep thanks from both of us on that our Martin story Cal finished at the end of May and that means we've locked off the thread yeah and we've selected our three winners it was a really successful Cal I think heaps of entries there in the main chatter thread and lots of lively conversations which is great and we have 34 entries in the finished objects thread which is also terrific we have three prizes three prizes three winners select before we go on to that we just have to make some very honorable mentions firstly we wanted to show you these fantastic pictures of Loulou who is Laban tear on Ravelry Loulou is looking so happy with her sweater we had to share that with you she needed the Glacia by martin story in rowan brushed fleece which is a really brilliant yarn by the way it's a bulky weight yarn but it's amazingly light and airy so next we want to share with you Todd's excitement because this is the first time he's actually finished a cow so Todd who is blunt knitter on Ravelry finished just in time and he knitted the Cain jumper by Martin story it looks great on you Todd so a big congratulations from us now before we announce the actual three winners I want to very quickly tell you a little bit about the prize so Millie from tribe yarns is donating the three prizes and it's three coupon codes to her online store for 25 pounds each and Milius millie has an online store but she also has a bricks-and-mortar shop in Richmond upon Thames which is sort of on the outskirts of London so if you do live in the London area or you're passing through on holiday I think it would be a really great place to visit because Richmond upon Thames has got a lot of other beautiful touristy area things - there's a poppy factory there there's a Hampton Court Palace yeah royal Richmond Park yeah and Kew Gardens yeah so you could make a really lovely day of it we actually sometimes drive through that area on the way on our way to whale so we should stop and answer and pop in say hello sometime could do that so merely also has a huge online shop and she's independent and she only stalks things that she personally really adores so looking through she's got many of the top yarn brands and hand-dyed companies but she also has very affordable favorites like West Yorkshire spinners and coop knits so the winners can look through and pick exactly what they want as their prizes and each winner gets a coupon code for 25 pounds our first winner is entry number 11 who is Julie from Townsville queensland australia and julie is julia place on Ravelry and she needed this really gorgeous Argyle vest for her grandson I love the classic colorway that she chose and she knitted it in drops baby marina I think it looks fantastic on the billiard table Julie's photos are really clear so you can see how really beautifully it is knitted and how neat the finishing is around the neck so that's a massive well done from us Julie our second winner is entry number 11 who is Georgie and Georgie since them on Ravelry and Georgie new to this really cute little cropped Farrell cardigan called Esprit and she used a mixture of Jameson and Smith's to play jump away and hedgehog Firebird skinny singles and if you read through her project notes Georgie wrote about doing a lot of ripping Andrea knitting just to get her colorway right and actually long-term viewers might remember meeting Georgie way back in episode 25 when she was our guest on leaders of the world I think the cardigan looks super cute on you Georgie so well done from us the third winner is entry number 12 who is nikkor be on Ravelry so she knitted the D cardigan which is just a really simple lined classic cardigan and she used Briggs and little Atlantic yarn which is the woolen spun Canadian yarn and I think it looks fantastic it's just really simple and elegant and she's finished it with some really lovely vintage buttons and again from what I can see in the photos I think she's done just a really a neat finishing job could the three winners send us a personal message on Ravelry and we'll get those coupon codes out to you and thank you very much to everyone who participated there yeah that was the point of the whole exercise so even if you haven't finished your project yet doesn't matter keep going at it and you can always put your finished project in the Martyn story thread not the finished objects right so check up on it is our project in there your project my tiger probably not you better put it in put it in I'm a little bit slack with putting my photos in yeah you're a terrible anyway we're gonna move on coming up now is the fantastic interview with John and Juliet Arvin you are gonna love it it's a lot of fun they're great people and we'll see you in two weeks yep thanks for being with us today bye-bye attention all fruity Knitting patrons John and Juliet are offering you a 15% discount of all their yarns fibre tops and patterns and protic bags and socks so everything in their online store that's a really fantastic offer because as you're going to soon see the quality of their yarns is really amazing so thanks a lot to John and Juliet and enjoy the interview welcome to fruity knitting joining me today are John and Juliet Arbonne John and Juliet are the owners of a specialist worsted spinning mill in Devon in the UK and over the last two years that I've been interviewing people in the Knitting industry I've kept hearing lots of comments about Jon's experts spinning knowledge and the amazing yarns he produces both under their own brand John urban textiles but also for other knitwear designers and sheep farmers so while John's expertise is in the spinning and the machinery Julia is managing it all behind the scenes many of you will have met John and Juliette at the various yarn shows around the UK and I am totally thrilled that we've finally had them on the show so we can learn some of John's spinning secrets and see inside they're very interesting mill so thank you so much to both of you for finally coming on fruity knitting thank you yes finally so because we have viewers from all around the world can you first describe where you are in Devon what the countryside is like because I know it's very beautiful and then tell us about your meal what kinds of things you're producing and what your business is us is we live on Exmoor which is on the coast of North Devon it's stunning countryside rolling hills and valleys dotted everywhere the Sheep it's absolutely beautiful it's stunning yes and consequently is full of sheep and that's where we source most of our sustainable wall from Varda wall board and we're spinning a range of Worcester Jones in our mill Worcester it being long staple using a various vintage and cobbled together old machinery to to do it that I've sort of developed over the years and John you did some serious study in textiles before you owned the mill so just tell us a little bit about that I know you went to Guatemala and Japan for research and study yep so my background I came into textiles for printing and studied print at London College of printing I was actually a color matter for a print innings company and I learned Green printing through that and from there I went studied textiles in Leicester and I've studied textiles and apparel to a degree level and specialized in spinning and knitting to that end whilst during the course of one various awards which I was able to use the finance and look at a side project of mine which was to look at backstrap weaving in Guatemala and what really caught me there was the different colors that they use within the different designs which are directly related to the village that the people are from so you can actually tell where somebody's from from the actual Hoople or Garmin they're actually wearing so there's an identity thing going on so I found that amazing in the color interaction of that also wants Japan looked at whole garment or seamless knitwear which was in early development at that stage it's actually a British development but the Japanese had taken it on and and taken it expanded it much further and at the time they had a launch which I went to for this type of machinery and they had a factory boutique there where I went in and was at a body scan and they actually then produced knitwear to fit me having seen the body scan I wasn't sure if it was me or not it didn't look my shape anyhow and the idea being that in the future you could go to a factory boutique on the high streets and be scanned and then have a jumper knitted while you wait there's a concept so it was never really gonna take off but I studied that and looked at that as well and that deformed part of my final dissertation in my degree as well from there went on and studied in Nottingham and did a diploma in fashion and textiles and there I was actually looking at the development of knit stitches from original framework knitted stitches which a lot of the techniques and stitches they'd used have been lost over the over the time and I was trying to bring those back into into knitwear well that's really interesting no wonder I've heard such good comments about your expertise because you really do have a body of knowledge behind you that's that's very interesting to hear so Juliet what about your role what what do you do behind the scenes I used to work at record companies so I used to work with pop stars organizing photoshoots video shoots sleeve design and styling and things like that I now spend my time channeling John's creative visions and ideas and and reining him in and turning them into tops and yarm ranges I also do all the sales stuff so I look after all the wholesale and the retail and show side of things so I sort of manage that side of stuff and recently you've just started the annual - haven't you it's a new magazine this was your project wasn't it I spent the last six months I suppose and the rest developing the annual we used to do a catalogue every year it has now grown into what we call the annual this is the first year it's out it's 50 pages about us it's got lots of photos stuff about our products it's got some lighthearted things like spot the difference and beautiful illustrations and it has four exclusive patterns we we have using our yarn they're all in the annual and that came out early this year yes I've got a copy I've been looking through it you've done a really good job it's very stylish to look at but it's also fun it's like a fun magazine to read so yeah congratulations I know now Jon you've been collecting and restoring old milling equipment and I don't know anything about machinery but I can appreciate that they have a real beauty about them so is there a piece of machinery that that perhaps has a particularly interesting story or somehow has a special meaning to you or is there a machine that you've always got a grumpy and moody troublesome relationship with all the machines have got something special to me in terms of their nature and where they've come from and and the way they operate and particularly I suppose Butler that the spinning machine holds quite dear and because it's named after the last wood stood spinner in Halifax and it's quite a new unique machine that it's a small sample set that was made for a spinning company where there was only two actually made and I don't know where the other one is so it's probably the only one in existence and this machine's pretty bulletproof it can spin absolutely anything in it's brilliant and because it's a small sample set it will go on forever because it's basically over engineered so I'll say that it probably go wrong tomorrow is it hard to work with machinery can you just give us an idea of vintage machinery do they is it going to last almost forever the good thing about old machinery is it's a lot of its solid cast and solid steel and I really did make these things to last and also because they had to withstand vibration I mean modern machinery now is is a lot lighter not so heavy and not so heavy duty and basically a lot of press steel and things like that and they use a lot of more electronics and obviously computer controls with the older machinery it's more hands-on and more changing gears so in doing that you can actually see how the machine actually functions and in doing that you can actually see when something's going wrong and it's just a bit more hands-on but it's more real and you're more in tune with it than you are of a modern machine I think most modern machines that the operators are just machine minders the pressing buttons and impressing the buttons they don't actually see what it is they're actually doing whereas our machines it's getting a spanner out don't changing a cog setting something up adjusting a gap and then you can see exactly what it's doing or not that's the case might be yeah so you mentioned one of them's got a name called Butler do they all have names well we rescued and moved and revamped and put back together all our machinery they're like members of the family really and they all have characters yeah you know I sort of yeah you get sort of used to them the way they operate and so you get quite affectionate they all have name end up having a silly name some of them are relevant some of her just saw it it's that name because it looked like or its but most of them have a name that connects to something to do with somebody with the machine my favorite machine is called Gillian she's the skein winder and she is over 100 years old she's beautiful all machine yeah she's named after a friend of mine so I've noticed you've got male and female names to some of the machinery sort of distinctly have a agenda yeah I crawl underneath and after sexing that's how we get to find out where they are so just very quickly is there a reason why you only do worsted spinning I prefer was to spin him but it came about because initially when I moved to Devon I had a sort of loose dream in 2000 to set up a mill and I and I thought I would do about PACA farmers because there's quite a few in the southwest so I literally moved down with nothing and spoke to our packer farmers and it's long staple when I I started developing processing for our packer owners and and it sort of sprung from that really and consequently I'm kind of glad I went down that route because I do prefer the type of fibers are off on offer it as a long staple so Worcester is my preferred reason you've also said that you're very happy to have control over every stage of yarn production at the mill explain why that's such an advantage to you what stages do you think are particularly important to have this control over yeah I have to remind myself there is an advantage I think the main thing is the quality of the top so you taking the fiber right from after it's been scab when actually scouring here but we set our parameters with the scour and get it professionally done and then once we've got control on it we we exactly what we're going to do to our fiber and prepare it what we're going to remove from a five of what we're going to act five or in terms of blending or removing short fibers or vegetable matter if we want to take stuff out and I suppose the most important machine for me is the comb that's like the cleaner of the operation and that turns what would normally be a what's classes are sliver into a fiber top and it removes short fibers of vegetable matter and if we do it properly we get the right staple variation in the tops which if I don't do that that can disrupt the way the yarn spins and cause all sorts of problems so that's that's the real key to what we do combing and also think first of all the fleece quality that you initially get is really important isn't it oh god yeah I mean it's not a magic system you're not going to take something poor quality into something good so you cut you've got you're stuck with what you work with so it's down to us to specify and select the fiber and be very careful about how we buying that to that end we don't just buy it willy-nilly we have a really good wool agent and we use the wallboard as well and we get to see the fiber especially down at the wool wall because we're really near to them so we can see what's coming in and we can also get the fiber tested and evaluated which is all quite important you need to know that it's been graded correctly there's all sorts of issues within the fiber that could cause problems in the process in order spun yarn and like I say it's not a magic system you can't if it's bad to start with it's going to be bad at the end so it's that's key to making sure that what we've got is right yeah so much knowledge really does go into the process of designing a top-quality yarn so what are some of the decisions that you have to make along this process for example is there any key principles that you use as guidelines or are you are there any flaws or weaknesses that you're consciously trying to look out for to avoid okay the sort of guiding principle for for making a yarn is it's the end basically is what you want how do you the textile of garment to perform at the end of it and then you work backwards so if you want a really good stitch definition if you want luster if you want the squeegee and bouncy yarn a very fully on very tight yarn in the garment do you want it to be a break a resistance to abrasion for example then all these factors you have to think about as far as the end in use then you go back and then you go to the start and then you decide what fibers you're going to select and how and how much twist and what's what fibers going to be performed better and what sort of blend is going to work and what sort of coloring and then you how you're going to dye the tops etc do you want a melange of color do you want the yarns we die so there's a whole host of things but it's the end if you see what I mean rather than if the start yeah that makes sense is there anything that you are consciously trying to avoid that you know you want to any flaws or weaknesses you're always aware the flaws and weaknesses basically you could sort of compensate for those or you decide that I can live with that because it's it's say like it's a very soft line like with merino merino compel you twist it too hard and it loses all its softness and bounce so do you want it to be a hard yawn or do you want it to be soft or do you want a monkey with the fiber which they do have a lot of fiber merino and coat it just just give it an t pill and things like that so no we want it in a natural state so you kind of go I want a really good yarn but it's got to be as natural as possible when we don't want to play with the fiber and you know things like that you're aware of but you you sort of allow for if you know what I mean in you yarn so what about your Devon yet yeah and how did you design that okay well that started on holiday bizarrely because we come across a an exhibition by an artist a tapestry artist called Jean look at who that's poses like the Picasso a tapestry and he was around at the same time fact they were friends and we'd stumbled across his exhibition and the colors that this guy used were just incredible and what he did was he had the the the wall died specifically to his shades and then had all these massive tapestries produced so we were sort of quite taken by that and I instantly when I could use his guys colors and make a palette from it and then what we wanted to do was have a yarn that was basically going to give us a really good definition in the knit a little bit of luster in it and also a bit bit durable so it's not going to be like a soft super soft yarn it's more of a real robust yarn that's going to last and what better than to use the source of our local environment so we wanted something that is really unique to Exmoor and devon so we used it made it with purely from fibers that we could use from from our local area so it's got Wendy Darling it our local cross which is Exmoor blue face and blue face Lester which have all been selected from from a local area so that that development came about initially from a color influence and then wanting it to be like a good quality robust yarn for another example I could knit by numbers is a great one to illustrate how we know he produces you're on and sort of the technical things that go into it initially we dye the tops and then Brendan so we get the sort of color effect so it looks quite stripy in the actual tops and what we do is blend in increments of white so you can see from a dark one it's getting lighter so we've got set formulas for these to produce colors so that's that's in its own right something that we have to stick to and be quite stringent about from there we then start making it into a roving so you can see that the colors are starting to merge a little bit more and from there we then produce finer roving this is all done on Bartlett by the way my favorite machine which is ideal for sort of short runs and all the way through here we're controlling the amount of twists we put into the rovings the weights of the rovings and the way that the rovings are going to perform and the actual color balance that we're going to get in the final yarn we could over blend this and it would just look flat but we keep it so it's still got a little bit of striping in there so that when it comes through you get this lovely melange effect in a final yarn when it comes to the final your honor just so happens it's sitting behind us red so I was talking only about keeping merino soft and squidgy and and that that's what it does and so to get that balance right and I have to put enough twists into this yarn so what I feel makes it perform but also gives it such a beautiful squash and feel to it and if I don't get that balance right that yarn will come out wrong come out tight if we haven't got the balance right within the fibers in the first place we'll get uneven yarn as well so you'll get thick and thin and yarn so all these things we have to be careful make sure we've got absolutely bang-on and when you produce it in the singles we spin it in singles we have to then fold it or ply as most spinners would say and that balance has to be absolutely bang-on as well because if you don't get your amount of twists right in the singles before you fold or ply it you can make a very yarn that's that's not balanced at all when we'll twist in the knitwear so I don't have you ever had any knitwear that stuff is spiraling on you because the yarns are all out of kilter and out of balance and which is one of the reasons I don't like single spun yarns because you have to pressure set them etc so it's all about that getting a balance right getting a feel right getting the handle right getting the tops right and then if you done everything right from the start then you've got a good yarn that's such an interesting answer just a really quick side note yes is there any way a knitter can pick up a yarn and and tell from looking at it whether it's balanced correctly or not yeah if you take a strand of yarn and just unravel it from your ball or from the skein or whatever it is and then just hold it straight between your fingers and then let it back on itself if it starts twisting it still got a little bit of lively twist in there and if that doesn't come out then that will that will stay in your knitwear I mean a certain amount okay but it's particularly lively or your knitwear all start wanting to twist and distort so that's a good test yeah yeah just do that hold it straight and then let it go on itself and see if it starts spiraling back yeah I mean do it to a point but if it's really excessive then you've got a problem there that's a really good tip so another example would be Exmoor sock is is this is more of a technical yarn I suppose because you're starting to put elements in there that are going to give it good wearability and also allow it to go into a washing machine so the reason these are all these sort of things have done is because in modern modern garments or people was knitwear they basically want it to go in the washing machine and they don't want to have to darn things so you end up compensating for that so basically what we've done here is with the wall we've treated the wall and we've given what's called a her cassette treatment which is the treatment of the outer layer of the wall so you partially burn away the outer scales on the fiber and then it's coated with a polymer which adheres to the fiber so it smoothes the fiber off and it removes the outer barbs from the fiber which is the things that when you wash or agitate your garments in in a hot liquid with which soap the fibers are able to move and the barbs lock the fiber and then you felt things yeah whether Barb's that were removed and that the fibers can actually relax and go back again so you don't feel so that's what super wash or her corset treatment does and the other thing we do with this is put nylon in which improves the way again so in terms of abrasion with a sock because this is a soft key on it that's the hardest part and on the hill and in the foot that any any textile is going to go under go on the body and so you need it to have some sort of strength there and the Nilan gives you that as long as also with a very sort of rugged wall the other thing you can do as well I mean we've selected fibers in there which are quite durable but is increase the twist so increase the twist and the singles and the fold to make it more durable again so it feel a little bit tighter than some of our other yarns and a little bit crisper and that's that's due to the treatment that we've given it as well so what fiber blend have you got in that one so this is our X more blue face and some kora dial in there the core Adele's given an extra staple length and helps the the X more blue face lock in so the fibers don't come out so much and also it's got some swar blurs in there to give it some color so we've added that so you can see it's not a solid looking color and that comes through when we over dyed so you get these sort of mottling in New York and then 10% nylon in there as well to give it its durability so what's the process of working then with other small businesses who either as sheep farmers want you to make yarn from their fleeces or as designers want you to design them a specialty yarn that suits exactly their needs we do also make some yarns for some other people we make Commission yarn for Murray Wallen we've developed a yarn for her which is called British breeds and we've also make a yarn for Rachel daughter of a shepherd using her own fiber so it's people with the same ethos and thoughts that we'd like to work with there's a long process that goes into it before we actually make the yard yeah I mean for instance when Murray wollen come to us she wanted a specific British breed yarn to work within her intricate fare our designs and so she had a definite color palette a definite idea of what she wanted to yarn to be and how to perform so I had to then work with her and select fibers that we thought were going to work together and produce what she wanted in terms of a stitch definition on the type of work she does and also give her that color effects are sort of slightly Tweedy effect in the in the yarn as well which again this sort of color blending that we do with tops so we dye the tops and then merge them together we can do that to create almost like a Tweedy looking yarn so that was a perfect fit for Marie and the problem was she then came to me with a scale of colors which then I had to color match which is fine when you're mixing paints you've got to mix fiber in colors to recreate a yarn so that that's quite complex and quite a long process to actually do that and then get them bang on given that the parameters you're working with the shades of the Venetian tops may not be exactly right for the color that you're trying to get at the end so we came up with a closest match we could using a specific dyed range of tops and yeah we're coming pretty close with that and then we've got the year on absolutely bang-on in terms of the way she wanted to perform in terms of the type of fibers that we've blended together and I think she's pretty happy with it I think so much so that it's selling out very quickly and we're struggling at the moment to keep up with we're getting there so then can you say what breeds of sheep are in her yarn yeah she's got Wednesday oh and she's got X more blue face she's got the Warblers and she's got blue face Lester but she's got the Devon double sorted blue face Lester which is its graded once then graded again it's like graded grains make finer flowers in it but this is grading twice as it has improved the quality at the blue face with them I don't know if people know but you get a lot of Kemp in blue face and if we take a lot of that out and when it's gone for a second time it's it's unbelievable when the starting point for this particular fiber was incredible anyhow and I thought we should go into something special so Murray was the perfect when she came knocking on the door thought she needs to have this fiber in a yarn so and that luster and softness in there superb well she's a lucky girl isn't she but you know I've got things like that all the time and I'm always coming up with ideas and I've I've got a thousand yarns bubbling in my head and I know that different characteristics of the different fibers going to produce different yarns that's Juliet's job here to to rein me in it works with Murray as well she's got very similar vision to us yes it really gelled and we only make yarns with people when it it gels it had that we have to understand where we're coming from someone comes on board and nope they're called the right ideas then you know I'm happy they come to me and just say make me a yarn you're coming to go whoa what what's up what are you talking about so what do you want it to do you know there's a lots of questions yes and Murray's had a lot of experience being the head designer from Rowan knows exactly what she wants it's not it's not a problem it's such a breeze to work with and the same with Rowe Joe Atkinson with daughter of the shepherd she's got breed-specific with a heavy burden and she wanted it to work and it was coming from a farmer a father work so and we wanted that to work for her as well so a little bit more technical making that one work because really it's a little bit on the short side for us and but we then used swap blurs and it which is a similar color to give it a bit more staple variation so the spin ability be a lot improved and then the quality of the yarns a lot better plus it's quite spongy fibre so it gave it a bit more fullness to it as well so it's a good fit what are some of the other things that you had to do with her yarn like what decisions did you have to make with the twist or it's a natural fibre - isn't it you've kept it natural hey well it doesn't hold together very well so you're kind of going we need something to make this sort of so come together quite quite quite well so yeah we we've just got to be careful the way that we prepped that the tops in the first place because they can come apart so you're just just handling it through the system a lot easier and then the amount of twists you're putting in the rovings to keep the thing together as well and making sure it's not going to be uneven and then when the actual final spinning and folding again getting that balance right so we're not over twisting it where it goes hard but enough to wish to keep it together and it's going perform so bitter challenge but then if you know what you're doing you can sort of know what parameters you can work to and get it right so so there must be quite a few challenges in running a small-scale meal is it hard to keep it at a controllable level we have the opportunity of sort of expanding our mill not long ago but we we'd like to be in control and we like to be very hands-on so we have kept it small we've got a small team we're all very close and very passionate and we like to see things through and have input from everybody yeah it's very important for us I think the important thing is we have a small team as well I can impart the knowledge that we've got and the team can carry on and I think is important these skills are retained within our meal and not in the army I think other businesses could be set up I think it's it's a struggle it's not easy but I think there is a room definitely in the UK and across other countries where the small specialist meals like ours could be set up you can get the machinery if we don't do this sort of thing you know this specialist sort of skill gets lost and and also sort of the creativity creativity gets lost within yarns as well yes we definitely want you to pass on your your knowledge before you both retire it's coming soon so tell us about the mill membership quickly well we have a mill membership scheme where you can become a little member it's a lifetime membership for us for a one-off fee and you get discount on every order you buy but we also have a secret page and on the secret pages which you can only log into you on the website if you're a male member we have limited edition yarns we have special things that nobody else has and also whenever we have a new range coming out we put that on there first so the mill members get to sample it before anyone else it's it's sort of our extended family our mill membership lifetime membership yeah I just have to mention that you have this video trailer called a short day at the mill and it's so well put together and it's really exciting to watch and when I watch it I oh I want to work at your mill - yeah exactly but unfortunately we have to wrap up the interview now so I've just got one last question for you and that is what is the best thing about being a husband-and-wife team clearly the room while she answers within there I'll do the same well we're both quite passionate and feisty I suppose but we do give each other space we we work in different offices which is a which is good every know each other well enough that we can break each other and have a rid of feisty meeting other sort of some people have been sitting there and been shocked and then next minute be join a cup of tea and it's just forgotten because it's just work so you know we were able to switch between our personal life and work life and without it being a problem we don't we don't have bear a grudge with each other do we I think I let John be John and I let him create and you know and then he lets me rein him in yeah and then it all seems to come and she forced me into thinking that I'm making the right decisions and she's led me down the path we're quite fond of each other I think what's really good is that you probably both have just as deeper passion for what you're doing so that ideas you know that you're both coming at it from the same level of passion and commitment will you even breathe it really you live and breathe it so you've got to be passionate about it you've got to enjoy it you've got to enjoy who you work with and yeah yeah we haven't bought the second yacht yeah we've only got rubber dinghy really well it's been so much fun to talk to you so thank you again for coming on foreign eating it's been such an honor and pleasure thanks for having us yeah thank you thank you for your story that it took so long to get here okay let's say goodbye to the audience by

Channel: Fruity Knitting

Views: 47,503

Keywords: Knitting, John Arbon

Id: Mdx6jadWrBM

Length: 88min 54sec (5334 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 11 2019