Autumn colours, cosy knitting and spinning projects (Marina Skua Ep 75)

Join me for a bit of a chat about my current knitting and spinning projects, including my latest knitting pattern release, the Tortilis Mitts, and some nice autumn leaves in the woods!

New ribbed mittens knitting pattern, lots of knitting projects, super local Zwartbles yarn, spinning plans and illustrated art prints. 

I’ve been having so much fun with all my craft projects lately. There's been a little bit of knitting (with a few new pattern releases on the horizon) and some spinning, including a bit of long draw practice that’s been surprisingly joyful. So I thought we could sit down together and catch up while I show you what I’ve been making.

I am wearing my Amber Apple Cardigan

I am wearing my Amber Apple Cardigan in this week's podcast video. Amber Apple is a bit of a modern take on a vintage vibe, with wonderfully dramatic V-neck and quite big balloon sleeves. This knitted cardigan has herringbone details on the cuffs and on the saddle shoulder, which I really like. It's a bit of a statement knit with the epic sleeve drama, but I wear it a lot more than you might expect, as it’s just really cosy. 

I knit this one using Rowan Pebble Island in the shade Macaroni, which is a pure Falkland's merino. I have to admit it’s not my favourite yarn - it is a nice non-superwash yarn, but it’s pure merino and pills like nothing on earth. It's a fairly heavy DK, sort of worsted weight yarn, so you could definitely substitute a similar woolly yarn if you prefer something that holds up a bit better.

Find the Amber Apple Cardigan knitting pattern on my website
Find the Amber Apple Cardigan knitting pattern on Ravelry

I'm also wearing my Tree Hay Tank

The knitted tank I’m wearing is my Tree Hay Tank, knit in a yarn I do love. The Tree Hay Tank is one of five designs that make up my Westcountry collection: a set of knitting patterns designed using undyed local British wool yarn from small farms here in the southwest of England. Tree Hay was inspired by my visit to Gutchpool Farm, where I picked up some naturally coloured Dorset Down and Shetland wool. 

Tree Hay is a V-neck slipover with tree-inspired stranded colourwork, It’s worked from the bottom up, in the round, with steeks for the neck and arms. It has contrasting ribbing, with the option to add a split hem (which I'm really enjoying in my handknits at the moment as an expansion gap to accommodate the ever-increasing belly) and short row shaping at the neck and arms, which I think is a really nice touch. 

Find the Tree Hay Tank on my website
Find the Tree Hay Tank on Ravelry

My recent knitting projects

I’m still working on my Pediment Jumper using a handspun yarn

If you read/watched the last episode, you will know that I was faced with a very serious case of yarn chicken with this knitting project. I asked your advice, and many of you suggested sweater surgery over frogging, so that is absolutely what I am going to do. The plan is to cut out a section of the body that I knitted too long, and then salvage that yarn to use for the rest of the sleeves. 

I’m just at the point now where I am steeling myself to do it because I’ve never actually attempted cutting up my knitting project like that before. So, please, wish me luck!

I’m also knitting another Scrumper Waistcoat using Black Isle Yarns

My other knitting project is a Scrumper Waistcoat in Longwool Blend from Black Isle Yarns. It's naturally dyed wool yarn in a colour called Ginger, which is sadly no longer available, and I'm loving how this knitted fabric is turning out. I'm particularly enjoying all my shades of goldy orange at the moment (as you can probably tell from my project bag by Harriet at Wildwood Stitches, from a previous collab we've done), and this colour is just so warm and cosy. 

The yarn has a slightly boucle-but-not-boucle texture, so the moss stitch panels look lovely, and although the knitted cables won’t have much definition, I’m really enjoying the soft floof and texture in this knitting project. 

I do believe Julie will be closing Black Isle Yarns at some point, but she does do beautiful things with naturally undyed yarn and natural dyes, so do check her out if you love those things too!

See my latest knitting pattern release - the Tortilis Mitts.

The Tortilis mitts were originally published in 52 Weeks of Accessories by Laine, but are now available as an individual knitting pattern on both my website and Ravelry. I designed these ribbed mittens in my hand-dyed Mendip DK yarn (this colour is Beech (Sunny) to be cosy, comfy, and supremely cute, and I just really, really enjoy them. 

The travelling stitches and unusual shaping in this mitten pattern were designed to create the feeling that the rib is flowing around itself - hence the name Tortilis, that comes from the Latin word for twisted. The 1x1 rib makes a really lovely, snug and stretchy fabric is super snuggly and warm. I also love the little point at the fingertips that feel a bit elfin and whimiscal. 

They come in three sizes, and I knit the second size. The smallest uses just one skein of Mendip DK, whereas the larger two sizes need two skeins (but with enough left over for contrast details in another knitting project).

Find the Tortilis Mitts on my website
Find the Tortilis Mitts on Ravelry

Getting ready for maternity leave

As is becoming quite evident on the podcast, I’m having a baby. I’ll be going on maternity leave around mid-December and am intending to take most of next year away from work, likely returning in autumn (exact date still to be confirmed).

The plan is to keep the online shop open so you can still order spinning fibre and hand-dyed yarn, etc, but postage will be less frequent.

I will still be around on Patreon occasionally, so if you’d like to keep in touch with me while I am not working properly, that is probably a good place to go. My Patreon is also a great place to get early access to the final drop of hand-dyed spinning fibre, discounts on knitting patterns and my hand-dyed yarn and fibre, and a place in the most wonderful crafty community of knitters, spinners, fibre lovers etc etc…)

Join me on Patreon 

Free knitting patterns for Patreons

I briefly mentioned a few of the benefits you get from joining my crafty community on Patreon, but certain tiers also get free knitting patterns. Crafters in the Fox tier get free copies of new knitting pattern releases while they are a patron. 

I have a few more knit designs whose rights have come back to me, so there will be a little flurry of new knitting pattern releases soon. If you like free knitting patterns, the Fox tier might be a nice fit for you.

A new, (nameless) cardigan design

I’ve spoken about this red cardigan on the podcast previously in Episode 71 and Episode 72, and whilst this cardigan knitting pattern has been a long time in the making, we’re very almost there with the tech editing. 

This knitted cardigan has a saddle shoulder with moss stitch details across the top, which morphs into twisty bits and then into knitted cables down the forearm. It is a fingering weight cardigan design, knit with Rauma Finull, a 100% Norwegian wool yarn, in colour 4120. Rauma Finull is what I consider to be a fairly classic, Shetland-style yarn. It’s a slightly loosely 2-plied woollen spun yarn, great for colourwork knitting and is a very similar spec to my hand-dyed Mendip 4-ply, so you could substitute for that as well. 

You can expect to hear more about this knit design when it’s released! 

Chocolatey brown, local Zwartbles wool

If you watched the last video of me spinning, swatching and sampling my new local Zwartbles wool yarn and spinning fibre, this won’t be news to you, but I still have a few skeins of this dark brown, undyed British wool available.  

This is a very limited edition batch of undyed yarn from a small holding a couple of villages away from where I am in Wiltshire, in South West England. I got the fleeces of 13 Zwartbles sheep, meticulously skirted them and sent about half of them to Rampisham Hill Farm Mill over in Dorset to be processed - half into carded sliver for spinning, and the other spun into this beautifully bouncy DK yarn.

My patrons bought all the spinning fibre pretty much immediately which was slightly alarming, but I still have a decent bit of the undyed yarn left. There's not a massive amount, but if you are interested in some hyper-local, very low carbon footprint, undyed British wool yarn, I think you’ll love this chocolatey brown goodness. 

Find the undyed Zwartbles DK yarn on my website

My spinning projects

My peridot green handspun is finished

And now onto the spinning front. If you’re a podcast regular, you will have seen a lot of this spinning project, and I’m delighted that it is finally finished. I'm very proud of this handspun yarn - it’s one of those spinning projects that made me feel like I might actually be an okay spinner, as I've created exactly the kind of yarn I was aiming for and quite consistently across numerous skeins.

I dyed a batch of my feather blend spinning fibre this beautiful peridot green and spun it up quite finely to be used as warp in a weaving project. The weft will be 2 big, squishy skeins of handspun yarn made using some of my skua spinning fibre, which I hand-dyed a moody browny greeny colour I called Highland. I am absolutely delighted with them both!

Shop spinning fibre

Practising my long draw spinning

In the Zwartbles video, I spun up some of the fibre using it as an opportunity to practice a bit of long draw spinning. I am entirely inexperienced in a woollen long draw spin, so I am going to practice a little bit with the small amount of carded sliver I have left.

It’s very different to the controlled, short, forward draw of my green handspun, and more about letting go of my desire to control the yarn. I'm not going to be aiming for consistency; rather, I just want to have fun with it and create very nice bouncy yarn. 

I've also been practising with three little samples of different Shetland fleeces, kindly sent to me by one of my lovely patrons, Marie, from her own flock. I spent a bit of an afternoon spinning them up and had so much fun. The resulting handspun skeins are very slubby, very messy looking, but I love them so much. After so long of very careful, repetitive, tiny spinning, it’s been immensely enjoyable to just be able to properly let go and relax a bit. The yarn itself is so bouncy and full of character, and the plan is to think of a tiny craft project to use these together - something for the baby, perhaps…

Upcoming spinning plans. 

I’ll soon be returning to a long-term spinning project: plant-dyed fleece from Fenhill Farm blended with flax tow. I’ve prepared it all into little nests of fibre ready to spin, and it’s going to be either warp or weft for a weaving project, with corresponding batts for the opposite direction. 

I have just under 400g of spinning fibre in total, so not nearly as much as my last big spin, but it will take a long time, nonetheless. So before I start, I think I’ll finish spinning up my zwarbles and perhaps dig through my fleece and fibre stash to see if anything calls to me as a palette cleanser spinning project first. 

I may even start a longer-term fibre prep project since I have prepped this fleece and flax to the point it’s ready to convert into a spinning project, and it does seem that I like to have craft projects at every single stage going on at once, and fibre prep is a gap that now needs to be filled!

I designed some greeting cards and A5 prints

Now, I don't claim to be an artist or illustrator, but I do like to draw. I've just restocked my collection of greeting cards based on my own pen and ink illustrations in a sort of vintage, children's book illustration style.

There are three designs in total: a sheep, which is the same sheep illustration featured on my Mendip yarn labels, and one of the flock whose fleece is used to create my own British wool yarn, a woodland ramble and a campfire scene, both inspired by a late-summer camping trip we took a few years ago in Loch Lomond in Scotland.

Until now, my illustrated cards have only been available individually, but I've just added an option for a pack of three. Each card is blank inside with plenty of room for your own message. Which is nice, as you can use them for any kind of occasion, including crafty Christmas gifts, seeing as gifting season is creeping up on us.

Each design is now also available as A5 art prints, which are lovely for popping on the walls of your studio space or as a nice gift for knitters and fibre lovers. They're printed on thick 300gsm paper, come with cardboard backing so they don't get bent in the post, and are wrapped in plant-based compostable bags to give them a bit of protection.

Find my greeting cards and art prints on the website

I think that’s everything from me for today. I really hope you've enjoyed catching up, and I will speak to you next time. Bye for now!

Stay connected with all things Marina Skua

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See you next time.