This month I'm mostly plodding on (enjoyably) with my ongoing spinning and knitting projects, and have started scheming in earnest for some imminent weaving on my floor loom.
I'm really savouring these slow craft projects, knowing where the fibres have come from and spending so many hours with each material to eventually turn it into some kind of finished textile.
Updates on current spinning projects, Autumn weaving plans and what's next in my queue of knitting projects.
I find myself rather in between craft projects at the moment. There are lots of plans in the works, and I’ve got a mixture of knitting, spinning, and weaving projects on the go - let’s get into it.
My recent knitting projects
I'm wearing my Welanna Cardigan
The knitted cardigan I’m wearing in this podcast video is my Welanna Cardigan. This knit design was originally published in Making Stories magazine and is now available on both my website and Ravelry. I love knitting projects with a bit of sleeve drama, so Welanna is a favourite with the big sleeves and swoopy cables, even if they’re not the most practical when it comes to washing up! It has a reasonably deep V-neck and a bit of a boxy fit on the body.
If you would like to make your own Welanna using my hand-dyed British wool yarn, Mendip 4-ply, I have some yarn and pattern knitting kits on the website.
Find the Welanna knitting pattern on my website
Find the Welanna knitting pattern on Ravelry
The red cardigan I’m knitting
Surprisingly, I’ve only got one proper knitting project on the go at the moment. It’s the lovely deep red cardigan I’m knitting in Rauma Finull, a 100% Norwegian wool yarn, in colour 4120, that I spoke about in the last podcast, Episode 71.
I’ve finally reached the sleeves, which have a panel of moss stitch running along the top that twists and intersects because, as I said, I can never resist an interesting sleeve detail. I’m knitting both sleeves at the same time because I cannot bring myself to knit one and then go back to do the same thing again. I just don’t enjoy repeating myself that way. I’m working them on 3.25mm needles, which are giving me a nice gauge on this yarn.
Instagram reminded me that I started this cardigan two years ago, which feels slightly ridiculous given how much I love it. It’s just been pushed aside so many times for other knitting design work. This time, I’m determined to focus and finish it, and I’m not letting myself cast on anything else until it’s done.
My background projects
That said, I do have two projects lurking in the background:
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A scrappy knitting project which has been on the needles for much longer - around four years! - but, I’m not in any hurry to finish
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The tiniest crochet project which I’ve banished to he naughty corner until I get over myself enough to do a bit of counting and finish it off.
I recently finished a chunky knit design sample for a publication which you might remember me teasing in the last blog, which means there’s room for a new knitting project or two. I’m excited to plan some autumn knitting - more on that below - but first, I need to get these sleeves knit up.
My new favourite knitting needles
While we’re in the middle of some knitting chat, I wanted to share an addition to my needle collection that has made a huge difference. I use interchangeable knitting needles all the time and recently started using the KnitPro Mindful swivel cables from No Frills Knitting in Bristol. When I was on the lookout for some decent pointy needles, Meg was super helpful, even sending me photos to compare the profiles of all the interchangeable needle tips she stocked. The Mindful tips are lovely and pointy. Brilliant for knitting cables, especially if you’re like me and cable without a cable needle, and also for fiddly stitches like M1PL. I’ve spoken before about how I’ve found the quality of my KnitPro needles to not be so great, but the Mindful range seems to be made to a much higher standard, which I'd definitely recommend.
I’m planning a yarn stash video
I’m planning an exclusive video for my Patreons of me going through my yarn stash. My personal yarn stash is actually reasonably modest; a couple of boxes, mostly single skeins that I have been gifted or bought to try. I’d love to pick some out and allocate them to a craft project, especially some autumn knitting, although I’m sure some will work their way into some weaving projects too. Weaving is a really nice way to combine different textures and yarns and then I can make some cloth or blankets on my floor loom.
An experimental weaving project
In my yarn stash, I know there are 4 cones of some natural grey British yarn I have had for years. It’s a single-ply with no particular breed specified. I’ve woven with it before, and it weaves up very nicely, so it would be satisfying to use it for some cloth.
I also have a greenish brown batch of the same yarn that I hand-dyed with coreopsis flowers from my garden, and appear to have modified with some iron to get the darker brown colour. It’s not my favourite shade on its own as I much prefer warmer browns, but paired with the grey in a herringbone pattern - using the grey for warp and the greeny brown for weft, I think it’ll combine nicely. I don’t have quite as much of the dyed batch as I first thought, so I may end up doing some weft stripes instead.
This weaving project will be a test run on my floor loom, which is still quite new to me. I’m procrastinating starting, as I have a couple of fiddly jobs I need to do before I can start. The first jobs is to add more texsolv heddles because the previous owner was a tapestry weaver and didn’t need the heddles set up for finer cloth. I, on the other hand, would quite like that.
My rigid heddle loom also doubles as a warping board. It’s a Kromski Harp Forte 24", which is great in theory, but the pegs don’t fit in the holes well, so the yarn sometimes pings off. I’m hoping that by sanding down the ends and roughing up the sides, the pegs will fit more snugly and also become grippier. I’m sure I will report back once it’s finally crossed off my crafty to-do list.
My recent spinning projects
Spinning hand-dyed British wool and flax fibre
I’m still working on the naturally dyed wool and flax blend I showed in my previous blog about blending fibres on a drum carder for my spinning project. I’ve now finished the batts I was making in the video which will be used to create my handspun yarn. Now it’s time to start spinning the yarn so it’s ready for me to weave.
I’d planned to spin it as a 2-ply, as I usually do, but I’m tempted to try spinning it as a single by way of helping this spinning project to move along faster. It’ll also help me get a larger, and finer woven fabric at the end of it all.
Single ply yarns can be weaker, but plying doubles the spinning time, and the yarn will be the same thickness as a single so… It would just be really nice to weave a fabric by hand that has a handle and weight to it, but which isn’t a super heavy tweed. We shall see how I land on that decision.
Green feather blend for a handspun, handwoven herringbone fabric
I’ve finished spinning the first skein of my feather blend British wool fibre that I hand-dyed in this beautiful peridot green. I’ve been spinning this yarn to combine with a couple of squishy skeins of hand-dyed, handspun skua blend I worked on a while ago for a weaving project.
You can hear a little more about this spinning project in Spring green British wool and handspun yarn (Marina Skua Podcast Ep 70), but essentially, I will use one as the warp and the other as the weft to create a herringbone fabric. It’s not something I’ve done before, but I’m feeling excited about it, and I think it will look great. I still have a lot of fluff left to spin so I’m already nearing the end of the next bobbin of singles for this yarn. The spinning is taking a while, but I’m going as fine as I can without it being horribly tedious.
The handspun yarn looks great so far, though and I think it’s going to be reasonably nice and strong as it does have quite a lot of plying twist in it. I need to spin another bobbin, to then be plied and I’ll have the final two bobbins to spin and ply before I am ready to move onto my weaving project.
This particular project is likely to be woven before the aforementioned naturally dyed wool and flax fibre, just because it’s a little further along. But the priority would be to make a start on the weaving project using the commercial yarn I mentioned first, so that I can test things out and get used to the loom before I move on to my precious handspun.
Find my natural Feather blend British wool top on the website
Find my natural skua blend British wool top on the website
Planning future craft projects
Before I can cast on anything new, I have to knit the sleeves of the red Rauma cardigan I am so close to finishing. There’s probably only an afternoon’s work left, but I keep finding myself getting distracted. There's a reason I always have multiple craft projects on the go!
I have space for a couple more knitting projects in my pile of WIPs so once the cardigan is cast off, I'll get to work on filming my yarn for Patrons. I'm really looking forward to remembering what skeins I have in stash and choosing a couple of new knitting projects to use some of them up. It's been a while since I've cast on something new, so it's an exciting prospect that I'm looking forward to.
New Autumn knitting pattern releases
In the next podcast, I’ll be looking at the patterns in my West Country collection, which I published as an eBook last winter and will soon make available as individual knitting patterns. I might also share some other knit designs that I have been sitting on this summer (no one wants to knit DK colourwork mittens in the middle of summer) which I hope will give you some inspiration for a new cast on to welcome in Autumn knitting season.
Find the West Country Collection of knitting patterns on my website
Find the West Country Collection of knitting patterns on Ravelry
All the benefits being in my Patreon community
Which reminds me, did you know a couple of my memberships on Patreon comes with discounts for both my website and knitting patterns?
The Fox tier, for instance, is just £10 a month (plus VAT) and includes a healthy 20% off my website, 60% off my knitting patterns, and a free PDF download of any new knitting pattern released while you’re a Fox member. I may be a little biased, but I think that's great!
And I love my crafty community on Patreon. The support there feels so valuable and is that community is accessible whichever level of membership you choose. Each tier (Sage, Ore and Fox) gives you membership in my patron-only Discord group. Here, we chat about and share photos of crafts and projects, and it's just a really lovely place to hang out.
Some tiers get access to patron-only videos, like the yarn stash one I’m planning, and monthly knit and chat sessions on zoom too. It's something I love doing and not something I talk about enough considering how lovely it is.
A special welcome offer this month
Which is why, for the rest of August, there is a special offer when you sign up. If you use the code summer, you’ll get 50% off your first month of joining just as a little welcome bonus. I truly do think it's an excellent place to be and I’d really love to have you there.
Become part of my Patreon community
That’s all for now. Hopefully next time I will have some more crafty progress to share with you. I’ll catch you then!
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.
For more casual life and crafting updates, you can follow me on Instagram, where I’ve been posting a bit more frequently, or join me on Facebook if that’s your preference.
And if you’d like even more behind-the-scenes content, you can join me over on Patreon. Subscribers get loads of extra perks, like early access to limited edition spinning fibre drops, membership in my exclusive Discord group and even (depending on your tier) free knitting patterns and discounts each month!
See you next time.
