S3 E11: The Yarn Shop Dream: What Comes Next? | Jane Abraham

0:00 I'm so excited for you to hear this episode of Yarn Library. Today I'm interviewing Jane Abraham, who has run Stitches and Cream in Falmouth in the UK for years now. The shop, the physical shop, is closing down, and this was announced literally days after I got a few emails from you guys saying we'd love to hear from a shopkeeper and what it's like to be in retail.

0:22 I'm super interested for you to hear from her, her experience, how she's treated people who are isolated, how she's brought them into her shop, and the challenges of creating a modern-day business. I hope you love this episode as much as I do. And as always, please don't forget to subscribe if you're not already subscribed.

0:41 Hello and welcome to Yarn Library with me, Adam Cleavely, the podcast where I talk to fascinating people in the fiber world about knitting, creativity, community, and the stories behind the stitches. Pick up your needles, pour a cup of tea, settle in, and welcome to the Yarn Library. Jane, before you open Stitches and Cream, you had this rather different career working in health and well-being as a policy advisor, being a non-exec director of an NHS trust.

1:06 Tell me how you got from there to owning a yarn shop in Falmouth.

1:11 Yeah, great question. Well, I probably should start with I've always knitted. So I was taught to knit when I was a child by my gran, like lots of us were. You know, I was working in London, as you said, sort of as a policy advisor to government on health and well-being at work and how do we keep people well and an inclusive workplace?

1:33 I'd done a number of years there and I was beginning to think, I don't know if I can do this anymore. I was living in Cornwall, commuting to London every week. Um, I was chatting to my sister over a cup of coffee, and I sort of said, you know what I'd really love to do. I said, I'm really nervous about leaving London and not having access to beautiful yarn shops.

1:53 Where am I gonna get sort of the loops of London and the tribe yarns which was open then? What am I gonna get those when I move back? If I come back to Cornwall permanently, I can't just hop on a train for a shopping trip, knitting trip to London and justify the cost.

2:08 Sorry, just just to be clear there, to avoid a shopping trip to London, you bought a shop and stocked it with yarn.

2:17 Yeah, why not? Um I completely agree. Under the why not? Um, and I I sort of knew what sort of yarns I liked and and uh you know how I wanted to work. And I'd always, as well as sort of the health side, I've always worked in sort of community development, whether that be in workplace environments, but also in communities working with deprived communities from a public health perspective.

2:44 And I sort of always wanted to create sort of a hub where people could come, whether they knitted or not almost, but just come, sit, feel sort of they can just have a chat, you make them a cup of tea. Hopefully, if they got their knitting, they could just bring out their knitting, they could get some help.

3:00 And I always wanted to create that almost more than the yarn shop, I suppose, in my head. I'd sort of always wanted to create this sort of safe space where people could just come.

3:11 I really appreciate that, but and that's a really difficult place to be because also you're then kind of creating a community centre, which is a which is a huge undertaking as well in terms of happens to have yarn. Which happens to have yarn. I mean, I I read an interview you gave where you said that you wanted to create a space where people didn't have a pressure to buy, which I thought is an incredibly generous-spirited thing to do, but also that's got economic consequences as well.

3:39 My accountant would agree with you. It was a different approach, and obviously, yeah, I wanted it. I was in my late 50s. I need well, I was in my mid-50s, actually. I needed to, you know, I don't draw pension until I'm 67, 66 now, 67 probably by the time I get to draw it. So I still needed to earn a living from it.

4:00 You know, the money wasn't the huge driving force that it potentially was. Part of it was that I wanted to create this sense of community whilst having beautiful yarns, beautiful notions, the things that I enjoyed working with. At the time, nowhere in Cornwall and Devon really were selling that type of yarn.

4:18 I did quite a lot of market research. I sort of thought, even though we're a small town, you know, 36,000 population, in the summer it swells enormously. Probably work because there's nothing else around like it. So it could be a destination place to come, which was my thinking really when I started it.

4:37 I just think that when you say putting it on back for when people can afford it, I don't know what you mean by that. Can you explain that?

4:45 That that shows my age. So when I was younger, if you went into a yarn shop and you wanted to sweat a quantity of yarn, the shopkeeper generally would offer the option that you could put the bulk of it back and just like take two balls, for example. You know, the shopkeeper would say, Well, keep it for three months, and then every time you got a little bit further, you could go.

5:05 But and that's in the days probably when yarn shops were everywhere, you know, so it you didn't have to make a special journey to find your local yarn shop, you could just go in and find them. So I offered, or still do offer, because we're still open until the end of December. I offer that option for people that local, you know, I will put yarn back for three months, we put a date on it and sort of say, you know, as and when you can afford it, pick it up.

5:30 Amazing. And I guess that also helps the knitter as well. If they'd sit into a project and then, you know, you decide after two balls actually you don't like the design or you for whatever reason.

5:40 Yeah, and that is a r and that is a risk. But I, you know, it's stock, stock that I would normally have anyway, so I can resell it. Again, probably my accountant would throttle me for saying this, but we have we have another yarn shop in the town, and I was very conscious that that yarn shop had been there since I was a child, and it sold a different type of yarn, should we just say it still does.

6:01 Sells a different product, it works with the big companies like Cerdar and those sorts of things. I never want I always wanted to know the name of the person that I was dealing with, the person that owned the business who was as passionate about the yarn as I am about the product and selling it. So I was always very conscious of that, but we have actually coexisted really well because if somebody comes into our shop and is looking for something, say it's like a something for a baby which is going to go in the washing machine all the time, I actually would say to them, I'd much rather you went to that other shop and purchased something that's right for you than me sell you something that actually

6:40 is not really fit for purpose. And I think that built a whole level of trust with our customers about when I was making recommendations about things, it was based on knowledge, experience, but also I wasn't trying to just sell for the sake of selling. Actually, I wanted them to get the best.

6:56 That's one of the really interesting challenges that I see within the you know, the idea of running a yarn shop is that you've got this very big tension between essentially yarn that you can buy for a pound a ball and yarn that you can spend 20 pounds a ball on. And all of that market exists, and you've got to sell a lot of the one pound balls of yarn in acrylic and so on to make up the revenue or the profit numbers that you can make if you sell the hand-dyed or the you know the rarer breed yarns.

7:30 But as a yarn shopper, I mean there aren't many products in the world where you look at expect to go into the shop and find a twenty-fold difference in the prices you're looking at.

7:40 Yeah. Yeah, and you know, and and as I said, I chose to work particularly with local yarn dyers, local wolf suppliers, mainly British, still is, 85-90% of our stock is British yarn. And with that, you know, particularly if you're working with an indie dyer, I was always wanted to pay a fair price for what they were doing.

8:05 You know, I was never one of these people that wanted to beat them down on price. I I appreciate the art, the time, the effort, the love that goes into pre creating those beautiful yarns. So there was always that sort of challenge, and particularly once I got VAT registered, because a lot of them aren't VAT registered, you're absorbing the VAT as well, because you can't claim anything back.

8:27 But, you know, it was something that I was passionate about and still am passionate about, is that small businesses in communities need to support each other, and you know, we're not out to, you know, do them down and get drag the best price out of them and not give them value for what they do. And I'm a firm believer in that.

8:46 And throughout the time that I've had the shop and I will continue to do this for moving forward, I've really believed that us small businesses in communities need to really support each other and look at ways we can creatively increase our customer base through those connections. I'm passionate about that and still will be moving forward, even though I might not have a physical shop to do it in.

9:09 I will still be promoting that. But it has been a challenge that not having the sort of cheaper end of the yarn market.

9:16 I mean, what one of the other one of the other challenges that I see, I've been in a yarn shop where I've seen someone come in, squidge the yarn that's in front of them, take photos of it, and then be very obviously looking it up online as well. Like, is that is that something that you have seen in your shop as well?

9:34 Or does that happen? Is it a not if it's a daily occurrence?

9:37 You get that, yeah. No, that is a very regular occurrence. Um, I think because we tended to have work with smaller businesses, it wasn't as easy to go elsewhere and get that online because quite often we would get bespoke colours done, for example, for the shop. And that's part of what I'll be taking forward is the sort of more bespoke colour ranges that we worked with with designers.

10:03 But oh gosh, yeah, definitely. Or taking photos of your samples with the labels. That's the other one. Um, and don't get me started on bringing in yarn you've bought elsewhere and asking for help.

10:17 Oh, right.

10:19unknown Yes.

10:20 I suppose that's the you know, where is where is a knitter who I can ask a question of? Oh, they're in that shop over there, I'll go over there and ask them with no thought about yeah.

10:29 Yeah, the fact that you they're gonna take up a half an hour of your time helping them with a project that you've actually got absolutely nothing from.

10:36 But I suppose that from your point of view, that is just about being part of what they they want and they need and and just being there for people. And if you're if you're out there trying to create a you know community centre and trying to be a centre for people to come and where people know that there's knitting vibes going on, that's what you're gonna get.

10:55 Yeah, no, and I suppose that made me realise that what I was trying to create, I was achieving, basically, because people felt confident enough that they would get the help that they needed. And I think aga a few people would abuse that. I'm gonna park that there, because some people would. But on the whole, you know, most people, once you'd help them once, they come back to you for advice before they started their next project.

11:18 Then you could potentially make a sale based on a recommendation of yarn. So I think that sort of level of trust came from, you know. And sometimes they were really simple things, and you know, you could five minutes you can get people on the way other times, you know. I have been known to spend a good hour with somebody just trying to sort out something or something they're struggling to understand, really, rather than it being a big problem.

11:42 It's something that just they had a mental block on, really.

11:46 I reached out to you because I got your email last week announcing that Stitches and Cream was closing down. I fully appreciate you explained in your email that that was because of lease renewal and you know wanting to do other things with your time. But is there something else going on there in terms of viability of yarn shops?

12:06 Do you feel?

12:07 Interesting question. I think all retail is hard at the moment. I don't think it's just yarn shops. I I just think retail in the UK and I think talking, I've talked to a number of yarn shop owners actually in other parts of the world recently. And I think it's something that a number of them are thinking very seriously about closing to.

12:28 So I think there is a whole issue around small businesses on a high street with a physical space, having to rising costs, the economic climate, yeah, there is a huge cost of living crisis. Have you seen the price of fuel in the UK at the moment? You know, whether that's going in your car or whether it's heating your home.

12:48 And whilst a lot of our customers, I suppose, when I look at the demographic and you know, I've done quite a lot of analysis on the personas who've used our shop, physical shop, and other aspects of the business, whilst some of them might not be as affected by a cost of living crisis, it's still going to bite on them.

13:07 And yeah, that, you know, escalation in rates, rent, I employ staff, so that new regulations coming in around staff. You know, I very much ascribe to healthy, happy staff. Of course I do, but there were some things coming in that was going to be almost impossible as a small business owner if you wanted to recruit more staff.

13:30 And yeah, so I don't think it's peculiar to yarn shops, but I do think there the other thing that affected me a little bit this year is I was a major supplier of the fibre company.

13:41 Mm-hmm.

13:42 And have uh had a lot of West Yorkshire spinners as well.

13:46 I did wonder when I asked you that question, whether the answer would just be, well, you know, online is just swamping everything. But actually, you're picking up on regulation, both the international import-export regulations like is challenging. Oh god, yeah. You're picking up on employment, business rates, all of those other conditions which make it extremely hard for businesses before you think even about people shopping online and doing, you know, moving away from the high street in that respect.

14:14 Yeah, I mean, ultimately, when you sit down and do the figures, and I'm quite openly sort of say this, but before you even open the door, you're looking at 1500 pounds a week to actually physically staff it, stock it, if not more. So, and those margins are just getting squeezed and squeezed and squeezed all the time, and people are being much more selective about what they're buying, quite naturally.

14:38 And you know, the your thing about people coming in and squishing and then going online, you know, if they can go online to one of these mass organisations that supply wool and find an alternate, you know, you look at yarn subs or whatever and find an alternative, then yeah, they're quite naturally going to do that.

14:55 The only thick caveat I'd put to that is so many people come in the shop and say, Oh, it's so lovely to be able to come in and actually touch it, feel it, see the colour.

15:03 I mean, that that's where I wonder if actually the the yarn market in particular leans more heavily towards the premium end. Because if you're, I don't know, yarn, if you're always buying the most expensive yarn, then it always matters. But I wonder if when you're having the more mass-produced yarns, you they're more predictable.

15:20 Whereas when you're spending at a premium, that you there's a there's an increased element of needing to see and feel the finished product more because there may be more variability or it may be something you've not worked with before, and therefore that uniqueness attracts you to the to go and see it.

15:36 Yeah, I I think there is that. I think, you know, in the summer we've always been much busier. We've got cruise ships coming into Falmouth all the time. We have a you know, huge influx of holiday makers, and they will be the people that come in and purchase the sort of unique holiday skein of yarn. In a bespoke colour to a, you know, we've got a number of bespoke sort of different yarns, you know, they would see that and that would be their holiday souvenir and go home.

16:01 So they they I suppose for them it's just the visual of seeing it suddenly and loving the colours and taking it. But I think you're right. I think there's also this thing about trueness of colour and things on websites, unless you've got a massive production team behind you that can, you know, with a professional photographer, you know, as a yarn shop owner, you're everything.

16:23 You're the marketeer, you're the photographer, you're the accountant, you're the hover-upper, you're the dishwasher, you're the tea maker, you're maintenance person for a building, literally everything that you can think of. Whereas, you know, the bigger companies can employ a professional photographer and get true colours and things and true representation of the different yarns.

16:43 And if you're working with a bigger company, they'll allow you to use their photo images, which is fantastic. If you're working with the smaller ones, it's you, you know, with your iPhone or your camera trying to capture it.

16:57 I was really interested to read that as from a couple of years ago. You said that about half of your revenue came in from stuff that wasn't product, that it's teaching other things that you do. Is that correct? So I understood that right.

17:10 But certainly now it's the the bit that brings me in the least revenue is the physical shop.

17:16 Well, they so it's everything else that you've created, actually, that is the bigger part of the business.

17:21 Yeah, the shop has given me the platform to do other things, and I'll be forever grateful for that. And Stitches and Cream isn't closing, it's just moving to a much more curated online presence without a physical shop there. But yeah, so you know, I created a sock club subscription service and sort of tested that really well with the market, and that's continued to grow and be a sort of great community in its own right, but also it's a good source of sort of education, teaching, but also product sales as well.

17:54 I've done sort of collaborations on kits and things um with designers, and that's continued to grow and provide a revenue which is sort of outside what we do in the shop. And obviously, the YouTube, I've created a global online community called The Flock. That is an amazing community. We literally have people from all over the world on that, and it's those sort of byproducts, and I run retreats as well.

18:18 So people come here to Falmouth and we run retreats four times a year. So those sides of the business, and that's really the other half of why I've decided to shut the shop, really, because A, it wasn't the revenue source that it could be, but B, it was holding me back from developing the online community piece.

18:39 And I found that, you know, from my idea about being that nurturing, supportive place, I've been able to achieve that more far more effectively online.

18:48 Yeah, which that which is interesting because I guess you can online you can engage an enormous community because there are so many more people that you can reach than can literally physically get to Falmouth.

18:59 Yeah, and and I think I've found my niche as well. Why I say that is when I started my YouTube channel, for example, it was very much because I watch YouTube a lot. Um, I don't you probably do too. It's probably my primary source of viewing, actually. And I was very I loved watching all the knitting, you know, producers and and the people promoting patterns and what they were knitting and everything else.

19:24 But I was very conscious that a lot of them were younger than me, and also that a lot of the designs aren't designed for a more mature female figure. Um thinking about female sort of knitting. We still want, you know, I know from talking to people in the shop that we still want contemporary modern patterns, but they need to be adjusted to suit a mature female body.

19:48 You know, you thicken around the waist, your arms get thicker, you know, all of those sorts of things. You can't wear cropped. It's not really great if you if you're a bit older. And so the reason that I sort of launched my YouTube channel was actually I wanted to talk about how it felt to be a woman approaching 60 who still wanted to knit all those modern things, still wanted to use lovely yarns, but I just didn't feel very heard in that space.

20:14 And what I found through that and the online community is there are an awful lot of women that feel like me. And you know, and I to I don't just talk about knitting, of course, I talk about transitioning through this stage of life as you know, there's a lot happens to women as we move into our 60s and beyond.

20:33 I think that sense of I'm not alone has continued to grow. And to me, I get as much out of that. I suppose it's enriching me as much as I hope I'm enriching other people's lives by just being open and honest about what it feels like to be this age in the knitting community.

20:52 That's so interesting to me because I'm relatively new to the knitting world, it's a it is a new hobby for me. I've only been doing it four and a half years. I've been online for like two years doing it.

21:03 And so you've done very well.

21:08 But I mean, like I stick out like a sore thumb because I'm a bloke, right? So that's that that's partly the novelty. But what's fascinating for me is that the you know, the stereotype is that the people that knit are people in their 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and it's women knitting, and therefore it's interesting that online the perception is or you know, that the enormous community that you've created that it's massive, actually is of the older women who knit who actually feel distanced from modern day knitting.

21:42 I I find that just so interesting because that's because that's sort of a different way round than I guess how people preconceive it.

21:50 Yeah, I mean it's great that younger generations are really, you know, since COVID, obviously, so many poor people more people are knitting and crochet. Crochet as well, so I shouldn't keep saying knitting, but knitting and crochet. It's it's become I see a we've got a university in the town, and you see a lot of students come in because they want something that takes them away from screen time.

22:08 You haven't sort of said, you can watch YouTube and knit as well. So your screen time will still be the same. Um but you know, they they really want sort of those sorts of pursuits. But there is a whole section of more mature women who either are confined to home because of health, because of caring responsibilities, or they live in remote areas, or they don't live near a knitting community that they can feel part of, or they feel that the knitting community can be a bit clicky in their knit and atta groups.

22:39 There's also an awful lot of people that are struggling because they learnt to knit many, many years ago, like I did on straight pins with seams and um old-fashioned patterns, and now when you come back to it, there's this whole new world of circular knitting and oh, you know, yoke, top-down, bottom-up, yoke, all sorts of stuff.

23:00 And although they're brilliant knitters, they lack the confidence to take on some of the more modern patterns because they feel excluded from that. And I've just found that just talking about my experience of that and sort of listening, I do an awful lot of I respond to everybody's comment on my YouTube channel because I think if people have taken the time to write a comment, it deserves attention and it it deserves a proper response.

23:28 So I do actively do that, and then um I was just very conscious that there were so many of these women out there, and my viewing channel for YouTube is 55 plus. Yeah, there are there are so many out there that feel the same way that I do, and I'm happy to talk about it.

23:47 It's really interesting as well, because so I I mean it's particularly front of mind for me because a local group, 10 miles from Cambridge, reached out to me last week saying that they were having trouble helping men come to the group because they and when they brought it up with a guy who knits, the typical response would be, I don't want to be the only guy that comes.

24:07 And so, you know, my perception is as well that that men find it really difficult to engage with groups sometimes just because it is very daunting, just like if it's it's daunting being the only woman walking into a male environment, it's the same thing being a man walking into a female environment, it's very difficult.

24:24 And I guess you get those pockets of isolation creeping up in multiple places around the knitting world. It it is, it can be incredibly inclusive, but there are also ways, I guess, where it becomes exclusive or perceived to be exclusive in some ways.

24:38 Yeah, we do have guys that come to our weekly knit and natter in the in the physical shop. But predominantly, yeah, I would agree with you. I think men, I mean a lot of them patterns for men, you know, there's nowhere near as many patterns are there or unisex patterns for men. I do think it is a it's weird, isn't it?

24:56 Because men really started knit they started the industry of knitting, really, with the guilds. You think back to the history of knitting, it's actually a male occupation before it became a women's occupation.

25:09 Well, it's doc well, I I think yes and no on that, because I although it's documented as a uh male because of the knitting guilds, there's also a a long history of women doing it without access to the guilds because guilds were created by men for men. But and so the commerce exactly for commerce. So so men don't know, for what is a better phrase, taking the glory and the money out of it.

25:36 Um but uh but yeah, you know, men are men certainly had a big role in in the sort of um industrialization of it, I suppose, in that respect.

25:45 Ironically, I think quite often when we have couples come in that are both knitters and it's sort of it's male and female couples, shall I say, the guy is the better knitter, and the the woman sort of go oh grudgingly sort of say, oh, it can knit socks a lot better than I can. Because once they I think the the dexterity of it, I think, and the sort of analytical part of it, I think once men really get into it, they're they make amazing knitters, and I see that an awful lot.

26:14 I do agree with you though, they are probably excluded, and there is a space in that world for somebody in in the male-nissing community to probably be a much and I don't see even a lot of they I used to see quite a few male YouTuber knitters, I don't really see them either now. Nimp Norman nimble needles, possibly one and yourself, but not vast quantities, not like there are the female ones.

26:39 Interesting.

26:40 I I recently I'm I I touch and go whether I'm gonna do this uh knit a cardigan. And part of me thought maybe what I'm gonna do is just follow someone else's pattern. I'm not gonna design it myself and just gonna go for something that you know an easy path. So I looked on Ravelry and I looked at cardigans for men.

26:59 Number one cardigan for a man is a petite knit women's cardigan, but you can you can you can knit it sized up for a man, and it's it's it that that feels really difficult to engage with because I'm not a small guy, I'm looking at um Meta who's modeling the cards.

27:16 This is involved to start with.

27:20 It's it's um I I guess I understand what you say about um seeing knitting patterns that aren't literally designed for your body and for models in models who look like you wearing the knitting that you're expecting to wear.

27:35 Yeah, you you don't see many knitting pattern designers who are more mature women who have a I'm gonna say typical mature women's physique. And I found an awful lot of knit modern knitting patterns now are designed, their arms are really thin, for example, or they like, as I said, cropped, or the bust adjustment, you know, a yoke won't sit up suit a lady with a fuller bust necessarily because it'll accentuate it.

28:02 So, you know, there's all those sorts of things to think about as a more mature person. That's what you know, I'm I'm generalising because obviously not everybody's like that. But my experience is there's an awful lot of women that you know, your body does change more so than men, even as you hit menopause and beyond.

28:21 Your body just you know, that's that's the fact. But you still want to knit the most modern patterns, but we have to do the maths, we have to think about do I need to put in a bust adjustment, do I need to do bigger arms on that sweater than the pattern does for that size and all of that sort of stuff.

28:38 I've said it before. The um the the complexities of women's bodies make pattern writing for me for a woman's body. It's so incredibly daunting.

28:48 I designed sock patterns and and I could do a shore, but I would never ever attempt a garment pattern because I do think it's complex. I think somebody like Rebecca Clo, who does sort of lots of bust shaping in her patterns, I think she's got it right because you can you've got it written there so you can follow it.

29:07 I just wish more, you know, a lot of the you mentioned somebody like Petit Knit or you know, they design patterns for a slim, sort of straight female body, and not everybody's like that.

29:19 Yeah, we need we need more more designers in the world creating more breadth of or more breadth of design.

29:27 Yeah, men as well, more men doing it. Um I wouldn't. I'm gonna change design that card again.

29:36 Well, I know, I really should. And the thing is, what's holding me back is I I get there are so many barriers to it because it's it's the complexity of it. I've got a vision of what I want, and I'm like, well, is it too complicated? And then I made a simplified version of the design, and then I thought, well, is that too simple?

29:53 And then why would anyone buy something that's simple and then so I I just go all over the place with it, and it's I'll stop you there.

30:00 I'll stop yeah, I'll stop you there because again, what I found from experience, if I'm looking at kits and things that sell the best, are all intro beginner level stuff. Because so many people don't want complex, they want their knitting to be sort of mindful, they want to enjoy it, they don't want these tricky techniques and complexity, and I've found by far the most prof, you know, the most saleable items that we've had in the shop and the things that I've created have been around.

30:38 Easy to do, yeah, the basic version. And you look at uh things like the step-by-step sweater by uh Florence Miller, fantastic pattern with great video tutorial support with it, and that's so popular because so many people lack the confidence to try something more advanced. So I think you'd be better doing something that was more basic that people could engage with and try than getting too complex.

31:04 More approachable, stick with approachable, yeah, yeah, it works. I was just fighting my brain off on it again.

31:12 I'd almost I'd always see it in that pattern.

31:16 I've done that.

31:19 Well, I think you know, if we just very touch on pattern designers, because you know, people moan about the cost of patterns, but when you think of particularly a garment pattern, yeah, if you're doing something that's sort of simple, a scarf or something, I totally agree. You can't justify the cost.

31:36 But if you look at somebody that's designed a garment that's had to have it test knitted across loads of different sizes and all the calculations, they deserve a decent amount of money for that pattern because of all the work that's gone into it.

31:51 I think people don't understand how many pattern sales actually happen. Because actually, if you look at if you look on Rabble, if you look at the top 1% of all patterns on there, you're talking about uh you know I mean you're still talking about thousands of patterns, but those they're selling hundreds of times, not tens of thousands of times.

32:14 Yes, the big Stephen West and yes, the big petite knit do sell tens of thousands of times. But for the majority, you know, most pattern designers would be absolutely blown away with something that sold a thousand times. And oh yeah, and actually, if you're talking about them getting four or five pounds or dollars for that, you know, for for one design that you might, you know, it's not going to be everything you do.

32:38 Actually, the amount of work that goes into it, I think I think patterns are woefully underpriced. But yeah, so it's everything missing.

32:45 Yeah, no, I would agree. I think it's um I think people need to appreciate how much work goes into those designs. And it's not something that I I could ever do. So I admire them.

32:56 Horns you drink a different question about um literally the week before that you announced that your shop was closing down, you were moving your business to you know the the other areas where you're going to spend your time. Petite knit uh if you just said no, I don't think petite knit's done anything outlandish.

33:16 Knitting for Olive. Sorry. Knitting for Olive has you know announced that they were exiting to well, talk about whether it's chatter about whether it's private equity or with or not, but they have sold to an investment company. And I wonder if you had any thoughts on you that and about you know, it's you know how how you leave a part of business to move on to something else, um, and what you think, what you thought about knitting for Olive for that.

33:44 Yeah, I mean, I think they were probably in a really difficult position. You can see that as a small family-run business, they had ambitions to ex their brand probably had exploded beyond their wildest dreams and they had continued to grow. I think where I come unstuck with it is why sell to somebody like a private equity and why not look at having keeping a majority shareholder stop space rather than selling out 100% to a business.

34:15 I mean, I don't know much about the business that's bought them, apart from the fact that typically those sorts of businesses obviously are looking at funding their shareholders, they're going to within a period of time operate quite differently, probably to the family values that the people that run Knitting for Olive had, and may make commercial decisions that may affect both the brand and the quality of the brand.

34:40 Um, I know there's been a huge backlash online from people, but I sort of understand why they had to do something, but I'm not quite sure why they've decided to sell out fully to a business like that and not look for like a 45% investment from somebody in the knitting industry.

34:58 So I totally agree that there are ways in which the brand of the product can totally be undermined because you change ownership and you are relinquishing that control. It does go over to someone else. But on the other hand, you know, they fulfilled so many people's wildest dreams of creating a really well-known international brand producing yarn.

35:18 They've done so incredibly well. And it's a blessing and a curse. Because if you are that successful, you know, sell it, say selling out to someone else in the in the yarn community, but people in the yarn community, there aren't big companies sitting around with lots of with the amount of money probably to buy a brand like that.

35:37 And so, you know, that's that's partly why I think they they probably went down that route. Because I mean, the only other big company I think of that, you know, based with British um brands, for example, is DMC, for example, which again is that's pirate equity. Because that's where that's the only source of that amount of money.

35:57 Yeah, I two or three years ago I was involved in an accelerated program that I got invited to be part of an accelerated program around business. And one of the things that they introduced us to were angel investors. So they are people that had no interest in the yarn world, but they were prepared to, you know, a bit like Dragon's Den, really.

36:18 You had to do a pitch, and they would be prepared to give you a sum of money for a and I'm not necessarily talking about the shop here, this was for other elements of my business. Um, and they were prepared. I had a lot a number of office for money to jet fuel the business, whilst you know, they took 20-30% of and then I sort of sat back and thought, at my age, I'm really not that ambitious about it.

36:50 I obviously again I want to make money, of course I do, I need to survive, but that's not my primary goal. And I sort of got all excited, and then I breast pause and thought, actually, it's my hard work. I've worked hard to build this business to where it is. Do I want just for a cash injection to sell out 20 30% of what I do and then still be working as hard to line somebody else's pockets?

37:18 But they're you know, those options are out there and they would come from very surprising sources, nothing to do with the young community.

37:24 I mean you're right that there may be other sources, but I guess it's the it's the it's a it's a well-trodden path and a well-known route to get a financial reward for what you've created.

37:35 Yeah, I hope I really hope it works out for them because I love the product. I've never stopped it, but I've loved the product. Um I I just hope it does work out that way.

37:45 Um joined the millions of people keeping our fingers crossed for that.

37:49 Yeah, no, I really do, because it's a lovely product and that their range of colours is superb.

37:55 So talking about products again, I one other thing I wanted to ask you about was um British yarns, because you're a huge advocate for British yarns and have talked about before British yarns being undervalued or you know, underutilised. Why do you think that is?

38:11 I think the British wool industry has struggled to market itself properly. I don't think we recognise the breeds that we have in the UK that can produce beautiful yarns. They might not be your merinos, for example. They might not be as soft as your merinos, but they might be a really beautiful, hardy yarn, rustic yarn.

38:32 And I I just don't think there's the it's it's seen as expensive and rustic. I think if you talk to most people, they go, oh, British yarns, you know, the farmers get virtually nothing for those fleeces. You know, they're they're virtually giving them away because they're getting nothing. The mills are all closing down in the UK, uh, the people that actually process those fibers.

38:53 I just think that we just need to do more to actually celebrate the heritage of our local breeds of sheep and do more to promote the yarns that come from those and the sort of sustainability of actually purchasing from the UK. Um, because otherwise you've got all those air miles, all the, you know, you don't always know the provenance of the yarn.

39:15 I like I like to know where it's come from. How it's been looked after when it was breathing.

39:21 Do you have do you have lots of sheep farming around where you are in Cornwall?

39:25 There's lots of farming, not necessarily so much. We have a mill. Um, the natural fibre company is in Cornwall. So we do have a local mill, but Devon and Cornwall probably together is better. So that's why John Arban, you know, John Arban is in Devon. They've they've got a mill too, and they they do an awful lot to celebrate British fibre.

39:46 Yeah.

39:46 Uh great company.

39:47 What's your favourite? What's your favourite sheep then?

39:49 Because I like the softness of it. I do like a blue face Leicester. Um, so I do I do like blue face. Wednesday Dale's nice too. Uh British Wensley Dale yarns. Um, they're always nice.

40:02 I'm fascinated as well by by combining different fibres to get different features of of different sheep combined together. So you can you can get, you know, you can combine long staples with something that's hardier versus you know getting softness in from other places as well. I think that's a that's an interesting, interesting thing.

40:20 You can work, you can work with a couple of and it is something that I have been considering is a yarn range um moving forward. But you can work with companies like John Arban or I think it's World of Wolf, you know, or Laxton's probably even to to bring together a unique blend of fibres. But uh yeah, I'm not an expert in how the blends work.

40:44 I would have to work with experts on that.

40:46 You you must have got close to having your own. I mean, you've talked about having your own range of colours in the shop. That's pretty close to having your own yarns, isn't it?

40:53 I dye my I I've because of the university. I did a I've done a lot of work with the students at the university. We have a fashion and textiles school here at the university, and they reached out to me a long time ago and sort of said, could students get work experience of marketing, photography, videography, all of that sort of you know, graphic design, would you accept internships or work with students to give them projects and things?

41:20 So I've done a lot of work with the university, and they've got a massive dye studio there. So they they offered it to me to to actually use in this in the university holidays.

41:33 Incredible.

41:33 So me, so me and a couple of my friends, and you know, it is a big commercial dyeing setup, it's like vast. So we go in probably six times a year now and dye at only yarn. Well, you know, you buy undyed yarn, but dye it in our own range of colours. Um, and that is something that I would definitely do more of moving forward.

41:56 Amazing. I'd love to ask you, I think it'd be remiss of me not to what advice you'd give to other yarn shop owners, people, people starting out. If someone wanted to start a yarn shop now, what advice would you be giving them based on your experience?

42:13 I think start small and really get to learn what your customers will like rather than just think about your own preferences. I think that was quite a steep learning curve for me. I'd sort of my colour palette would be my colour palette, and I thought about going big and getting lots of brands in and when I started, but I got some really good advice from somebody else, and they said, no, start really small and really get to learn what your customer wants, what they're looking for, what they're asking for, and then build your stock from there rather than think about sort of creating this really full experience when somebody walks in the shop from the get-go, because you could waste an awful lot

42:57 of money and be stuck with an awful lot of stock that just doesn't sell. So the important thing is to learn, learn about your customers. Take the time to really learn who your customer is, because when you do that, you find that you can be really narrow down what they're gonna like and be much more successful.

43:17 That's fascinating to me because I obviously I have to admit, I've definitely thought about opening a yarn shop from time to time.

43:25 What would you do differently? I've got to ask you that. What would you do differently if you opened a yarn shop?

43:30 The the thing, the thing that you know that visually comes to mind if I think about a yarn shop is the bright walls of colours and you know that I would I would love to play with, um, which is exactly the opposite of what you're saying. Because you're saying, you know, think about what your customers want, and I've got no idea whether anyone else would want that.

43:48 It's about curation. My cousin is uh chef and runs a restaurant, and he says that when he thinks about a menu, he talks about people coming to. Visit the restaurant because they want his sense of taste. They want his curation of dishes that he's made. And I sort of think of I suppose I've extrapolated that thought too if I had a yarn shop, that's what I'd do.

44:12 I'd just get to be, you know, you'd have your own taste. But that's it's exactly not what you're not saying. You're saying actually you could like bright reds, oranges, and pinks, but if you live in an area where everyone wants creams and blues, then that's what you would do.

44:27 Yeah, I think you need to be aware of where, you know, the aesthetic around the Danish patterns, for example, is all muted colours. You look at the yarns that Knitting for Olive or Petite Knits or those sorts of companies at Camaros are bringing out, they're all those beautiful muted colours, and a lot of the patterns are done in that.

44:44 So I think you've got to follow that trend in terms of that's what people are seeing when they go on Ravelry, when they look on Instagram, you know, those sorts of colours. Yeah, what I'm saying is that when I started, I sort of would have filled it with brands that now looking back at, or colours that I looking back at, I think would never have sold in a seaside village town on the coast in Cornwall, where everybody's looking for neutrals, greens, blues, sea colours, sand because they want that feeling of Cornwall.

45:18 Fascinating. If I was in a city that might be yeah, in a city that might be totally different, and that's what I mean. You need to know what your customers, because where you're located could give, you know, if you were in a young, vibrant city or a sort of where my son used to live in London, sort of really sort of edgy sort of area, you might go for a completely different vibe.

45:44 But where I am um and the customers that came in, it was just listening and looking and observing and thinking, okay, that's selling well. I need to do more of that, and not just investing wholesale.

45:58 Yeah. And then for your your shop isn't an extension of a massive stash pile of your own taste, then.

46:05 That's could be. No, no, it no, no, it's not. I've got very little stash now, actually. I've actually been really good at getting rid of my stash through the shop.

46:18 Congratulations.

46:20 I just I just looked at it and thought, crikey Jane, you'll never have enough years to knit all of the left to knit all of that. You need to to get rid of some of it. Well, I think you've and some of it was impulsed by you know, you go to a show and you you buy these things thinking, oh, I'll make something with it, and then you look at it a few months later thinking, what on earth was I thinking of?

46:41 I never wear that.

46:42 You've talked as well a little bit about how knitting sometimes can become almost overwhelming because because you've turned it from a hobby into knitting and crochet being basically your well, it is your job now, that so much of what you do, or one of your many jobs. How do you feel about that now, knowing that the shop is going to shrink in terms of part of your life?

47:03 Does that does that help bring joy back into knitting for you?

47:06 Yeah, and I and I've talked very openly about this on my YouTube. The pressure of knitting samples for a shop, new yarns coming out, you know, an example of the fibre company going was an awful lot of our samples were in fibre company yarn. So whilst you can still use them, you can't sell the yarn as effectively because you're having to substitute it.

47:30 So a lot of things I sort of looked at and thought, oh goodness me, I'm gonna have to re-knit some of these. And I found particularly over the last couple of years that the joy of knitting is still there, but it's been very, very sort of tainted by the fact that I've always got a knit to a deadline. I'm not knitting for me, I've always got to knit in the yarns that I've got in the shop.

47:51 I'm always sort of working towards what new patterns, what new styles, what new colours, because you're always thinking I need to knit something that's going to promote what we've got in the shop. And it's stripped the joy out of doing it because it felt like you were a production line. And so many people have asked me for commissions, and I've just said no, never do commissions because I it would just strip the joy out of it for me.

48:15 And so there is that danger, you know, that old adage about what is it, never make your hobby into a business.

48:21 Yeah, I've I've I've heard that and ignored it.

48:24 I mean, I I think if you've got a shop, it is different, and I know you can get sample knitters, but that's not always as easy as it sounds. You know, people will volunteer and then they don't deliver, or it might not be knitted in the way you'd like it, or you know, there are a whole lot of reasons why sometimes sample knitting doesn't work.

48:44 The other thing I would say about samples because you don't want to use too much of your stock in making the sample, because obviously there's a cost element in that. You try and make the smallest size you can.

48:54 Yes.

48:55 Um, because you know, but you do want people to be able to try it on as well. So it's just like, well, what size shall I make that people can try on?

49:04 Yes, you can do it, you can do a tiny one very quickly with a little bit of yarn, or you can spend months making the 5XL1, which is you know, uses three times as much.

49:16 So consequently, a lot of the samples we're gonna have in a sample sale soon online because they won't fit me, you know. So, and I've I've knitted all of those and they're not gonna fit me. I'm really looking forward to next year, and uh, yeah, I'm still gonna be creating kits and obviously photographing those, but I don't have to keep knitting big sweaters, you know, just to promote the yarn that I've got in the shop.

49:39 Uh it'll be much more about the online shop, it will have kits in it, but also on my other channels. I'll be able to try new things. You'll be right and I'm really excited about it.

49:49 Get to the knit get to the things that you want to wear and the yarns that you're choosing for yourself as well. Yeah, because it it has been so lovely to talk to you, Jane, and I'm I'm so impressed and fascinated by your story of starting out choosing not to go on a shopping trip to London and instead investing in your own shop in in Cornwall.

50:07 I'm so interested by the by the stories you've told. Is there um if people want to look you up and find more out about you and Stitches and Cream, what's the best thing for them to do? Where should they go?

50:18 Uh so as I said, Stitches and Cream will continue to exist and still be a business, but it'll be a much more curated online experience, and that's where my sock club will be and a sock shop as well. But on the other side is the Cornish Knitter. I've got two businesses. Um, the Cornish Knitter is the other side, which is much more about the connection, the uh retreats, the online community, the flock, the YouTube.

50:44 I've got some exciting plans for that in 2027 as well, which closing the shop will allow me a lot more time to focus on developing. So, yeah, either of those two avenues, but just follow me on YouTube and uh you'll get to hear all about my life because I do a weekly knit with me every week. So I get to chat about my life.

51:03 Fabulous. Jane, it's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much for coming onto the Yarn Library Podcast.

51:08 Thank you for having me. It's well, it's been a delight.

51:11 Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Yarn Library. If you've enjoyed the conversation, please do follow or subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you have a moment to leave a rating or review, it genuinely helps more people discover the show. If you have a question, comment, or idea for a future episode, someone you want to hear me interview, email me at podcast at cleavelynits.com.

51:30 And if you'd like to see this conversation or watch my longer form videos, head to Clevelands on YouTube. I'll be back very soon with another episode. Until then, thank you for listening and happy knitting.