A longish, rambly chat from the studio to show you my current craft projects, a few tiny vague knit design sketches, some updates I've made in my workspace, plus a tour of what I'm growing in the front and back gardens, and aaalll of my seedlings.
My current craft projects, why I started designing knitwear and a fun garden tour.
Hello hello! The weather has been incredible lately, and so the garden has been taking up a lot of my time whilst baby is sleeping. I've thoroughly enjoyed having time to plant all the seeds, but I have been doing a little bit of crafting too. Here's a quick run-through of what I've been up to, but the full video update is available to Patreon and YouTube members only.
If you're interested in keeping in touch and staying up to date with my current craft projects whilst I'm on maternity leave, Patreon is the best place to be. I'm continuing to share regular video updates, but there's also a very large back catalogue of previous videos there, so you can catch up on previous projects and ramblings in the meantime.
So yeah - if you're not, but would like to join me on Patreon, you can do so just here.
I'm wearing my Conflux jumper
I'm wearing my Conflux jumper, which is a V-neck knitted sweater worked from the bottom up. It has all the sorts of details I like in a knitting pattern: diagonal structural elements, sections of moss stitch and neat transitions between sections. It's knitted in my Mendip DK in Ore (Cloudy) which is still avaiable to order online.
I'm also wearing a Bournlet headband, a fun little cable knit headband that’s designed to be knitted with whatever yarn you have to hand.
I'm knitting a chocolatey brown cardigan in undyed Zwartbles yarn
I'm still knitting my deceptively basic dark brown cardigan my handmade wardrobe was missing using my undyed Zwartbles DK yarn. The knit design is self-drafted, with the construction and body shaping based on my Quickbeam Cardigan. It's very much a simple, mindless stockinette knitting project, but the yarn is making it very enjoyable to knit up.
I'm pondering how to finish off the cardigan, so please do watch the video to hear all of that.
I've been playing around with some new knit designs
I needed to clear my head of knitting pattern ideas the other day so I did some quick sketches playing with weird proportions. I don't sketch out knit designs very often, just for fun, but it was satisfying to get these out. Let's see if any of them make it off the paper...
I have a lovely plant-dyed wool top to spin
I'm still working on The Big Spin, a spinning project using a plant-dyed British wool/flax blend. It’s a big, ongoing craft project which I have been documenting in a playlist on Youtube if you'd like to catch up. I have just started the second skein of singles after which I shall allow myself a little break to work on another spinning project.
I'm planning on spinning up a lovely plant-dyed wool top, my friend Lorna of Thread and Yarn gave to me. The wool is a blend of Shetland, blue-faced Leicester and Cheviot, and it was blended at Wingham Wool Work, who I also work with for my own fibre blends.
Speaking of which, a recent delivery in the studio means I've got plenty of undyed spinning fibre in the shop if you'd like to try out any of my own British wool blends. I won’t be dyeing any until autumn, but if you love sheepy shades or want a new hand-dye fibre project, enjoy!
I got a new sofa for the studio
The studio space is coming along, and I have a 'new' squishy yellow sofa! Tune in at around 32 minutes if you'd like a quick look around.
Take a look around the garden
I have lots of ambitious growing plans. Tune in at around 36:30 for a fun garden tour. I walked through (almost) every single plant I'm growing, including some woad seeds I got from Lorna's shop. There's still time to plant them if you'd like to grow some woad too.
That's all from me for now. If you'd love to hang out in the meantime, I've been posting some updates on our Patreon Discord channel. If you haven't joined the server yet, it’s easy to get started - you can find all the info on how to join just here. And if you're not a Patron yet, but would like to be, you can support me on Patreon just here.
A final quick reminder that orders from my website are still being posted out, just quite sporadically, so you can still buy anything in stock that you have your eye on.
Thanks for joining me, and catch you again next month,
Marina
Stay connected with all things Marina Skua
If you’d like to keep up with everything I’m working on between podcast episodes, please do subscribe to my newsletter. It’s the best way to stay in the loop about events I’ll be attending, shop updates, new product releases, publications, and additions to the website. You also get a 10% discount code with your next order.
I’ve also recently added an events page to the website, where you can see all the upcoming places I’ll be. Whether it’s events I’m attending, talks I’m giving, or markets where you can come and squish some hand-dyed British wool yarns or just have a chat in person.
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See you next time.
