A look at Beechmast, my latest knitting pattern release, along with some special edition autumnal hand-dyed, British wool yarn, a new knitted scarf design and some spinning fibre developments.
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Meet Beechmast, my latest knitting pattern design in collaboration with John Arbon Textiles.
After about a year in the making, I’m thrilled to share Beechmast, my collaboration design with John Arbon Textiles. This project has been a celebration of autumn in all its cosy loveliness. I designed both the yarn colour and the jumper pattern, and I couldn’t be more excited to share it with you finally!
My own shade of Appledore Aran from John Arbon Textiles
Fallen Leaf is a custom, limited-edition shade of the new Appledore Aran from John Arbon Textiles and I love it. This yarn is a beautiful blend of 40% Devon Closewool, 40% Romney, and 20% Exmoor Blueface, resulting in a "woolly bounce and a smattering of lustre.” For those of you who don't know, John Arbon create their yarns using a small palette of seven dyed wool tops, blended in various proportions to create shades with incredible depth and a subtle tweedy effect, so designing Fallen Leaf was a fascinating process.
Creating my limited edition yarn colour
To create the colour, I experimented with several combinations of those seven colours until I landed on the recipe that felt right. At first I wasn’t sure which direction I was going to go; I either wanted something very warm and cosy and autumnal or something soft and teal green.
After multiple recipe trials, it was obviously the warmer autumnal orange avenue I pursued. I’d created a number of recipes that were blended for me so that I could spin by hand to create the tiniest knitted swatches, some oranges had a more pinky brown feel, but in the end I settled on one which glows with a heavy base of yellow. The final recipe combines the yellow wool top with a fair bit of pink and a decent amount of the brown to warm it up nicely and make it slightly less lurid. Tiny bits of the dark grey and (listerine!) green add depth and beautiful flecks of contrast in the finished yarn that I love. It feels like autumn spun up into a yarn.
Naming my limited edition yarn colour
The name Fallen Leaf came about quite serendipitously. While finalising the recipe at the John Arbon Mill, I noticed a curled-up beech leaf had ridden in on my boot and ended up under the desk. It pretty much matched the colour I had just created perfectly. Apparently, it struck me as something poignant because I kept the leaf and the name was decided.
Appledore Aran from John Arbon Textiles is out now. You can find Fallen Leaf as an aran-weight yarn or as wool top for spinning.
The knit design - a 'very Marina' orange, cabled knit jumper
Of course, I wanted to create a new knit design for release with my yarn and, if you’ve been around a while you’ll know I really like a good orange, so I thought I would lean into that fact and create a new knitting pattern that may well be the most 'Marina' garment I’ve ever designed. Beechmast brings together everything I love when it comes to knitting: we’ve got that warm autumnal orange, British wool yarn, my favourite moss stitch contrasted with stockinette, mandatory cables (for that Aran weight yarn) with some beautiful swoopy diagonal details and then we have a little 2x2 rib to finish it off.
The knitted details
Beechmast has a classic drop-shoulder silhouette, worked from the top down. Both front and back have wide columns of cables that travel to create a V shape, enclosing a panel of moss stitch at the centre.
Stitches are cast on for the back and worked to the underarms, followed by the front which is picked up and worked similarly. After joining the front and back, the body is knit in the round to the hem which is divided and knit flat both front and back to achieve a split hem. The sleeves are picked up and shaped with short rows at the top to shape the sleeve cap before tapering down to the cuffs. It’s finished with a double neckband that’s folded over and stitched down.
Knit it yourself with a John Arbon yarn knitting kit
The Beechmast knitting pattern is available now on my website or Ravelry. John Arbon has also, very kindly, put together some Beechmast knitting kits which include all your yarn plus a limited edition badge and a lovely project bag to keep it all safe. There are 4 shades of Appledore Aran to choose from including Fallen Leaf, of course
A chance to win the Appledore Aran yarn or wool tops
Even more kindly, John Arbon have sent me some lovely things for a giveway. We have 7 skeins of Fallen Leaf (enough to knit up to size 4 of Beechmast) or 700g of wool top plus a lovely John Arbon Textiles tote bag to store them in.
You can enter by:
- Subscribing to both my Youtube channel and John Arbon Textiles.
- Leaving me a comment on my podcast video with something lovely - tell me your favourite design element, whether you’re planning on knitting the jumper or what you’d spin with the wool top
- Specifying your preference for the skeins of yarn or the wool tops in your comment.
I’ll pick two winners, one for the yarn skeins and one for the wool top which i’ll announce in a couple of weeks when I film my next video.
I’m so excited about this yarn and jumper pattern and I hope you love it too.
My Westcountry Collection of knitting patterns
I have been working on knit designs for this collection for a while now, probably since September last year. It has been a labour of love, but we are finally publishing next month! My West Country Collection, From This Land will include five unisex knitting patterns; all practical, comfortable knits perfect for outdoor adventures. Each knit design is inspired by the yarn it is knitted in and the farm where the British wool has come from. The collection is a celebration of British wool sourced exclusively from the Westcountry meaning the wool has been grown, processed, and spun locally to me in the South West of England. It’s a testament to the incredible work being done by farms that care deeply for their animals, the environment, and the land they work on.
The collection is made possible with support from South West England Fibreshed, an organisation I’m proud to be part of. They champion regional textiles and promote sustainable, local textile systems, which align perfectly with my values.
The latest addition to the collection - a textured scarf using yarn from the Raw Wool Company
This knit design wasn’t even a work in progress the last time I spoke to you all so you can tell I have been knitting furiously behind the scenes. I’ve touched upon the yarn in a previous podcast, but I picked up a cone of the most beautiful very dark brown, almost black yarn during a visit to Anton of the Raw Wool Company. He’s known for his flock of coloured Wendsleysdales and this limited edition British wool is a mix of 70% British Zwartbles Wool from fields overlooking the sea in West Cornwall blended with 30% Anton's own British Wensleydale long wool and is called Rum and Raisin.
This DK, woollen-spun yarn has a lot of drape, a soft halo, and just a hint of lustre from the Wensleydale. Its rich, brown colour is exceptionally dark so I purposely placed the focus on texture rather than detail when designing as any details would be easily lost.
And i’ve knit a scarf! This is quite a simple knit design using broken rib but I’ve added a little interest with some short rows at either end to create little points. We’ve got a nice tubular cast on and cast off to make those edges nice and neat.
The knitting pattern is versatile and easy to modify - you can adjust the length of scarf by knitting more repeats cast on stitches to go as wide as you want. I quite like the thought of going really wide and making it into a fun trapezium shawl.
If you love the look of this textured knit scarf, keep an eye out for the test knit coming soon. As always, details will be shared with my tester mailing list first, then added to my website’s test knit page.
Find local yarn to you with Fibreshed
The West Country Collection focuses on British wool and it’s it’s been incredible to hear from a few of you that you’ve been using Fibreshed to find local wool producers for yourself. By sourcing fibres locally, we’re supporting sustainable practices and reducing the environmental footprint of textile production. If you’re in the UK, it’s incredible to realise there are fibre producers just down the road creating the loveliest of yarns to knit with.
For those of you abroad, I’d encourage you to take a look at Fibreshed’s regional affiliates. There are loads in the US and Canada and quite a few in Europe too, in fact they’re coming up all over the place which is great to see. There are excellent directories of local fibre producers who are not just working locally, but also doing great things in terms of the environment. You can explore the list of affiliates here.
A new Marina Skua fibre blend
On the subject of naturally coloured wool, I’m excited to share a new fibre blend I have come up with with Wingham Wool Works. I’ve worked with them alot over the last year and I’m excited to have a tiny little skein of hand-spun yarn to show off.
This new blend, which will be available undyed to start with because it looks so glorious in its natural state. It’s darker than my other fibre blends and has a wonderfully rustic yet surprisingly soft feel. I wanted to create something really comforting, a proper wintery fibre and I love it.
The fibre details
This new fibre blend I am naming Tilf, combines Black Welsh, Jacob and Black Shetland all of which are a very similar deep and rich dark colour, brown Bluefaced Leicester which adds a little warmth and then Light Grey Suffolk which gives it a subtle salt and pepper effect.
The result is a crimpy, bouncy yarn that’s irresistibly soft, despite its rustic appearance. While the undyed version is incredibly lovely, I will be dying over it to create a series of very very moody colours. I’ve done a dye experiment with some greens and blues and the result is very subtle, but full of character so I’m looking forward to spinning that one up.
My seasonal spinning fibre collection
With the addition of Tilf, I now have a wool top base that lends itself to each seaon rather nicely. Each one really does have its own personality and they are designed to be fun to spin in different ways:
Solace (spring) - really nice for fizzy stitch definition with some lustrous fibres and works quite nicely as a worsted spin yarn.
Feather (summer) - sleek with a delicate halo
Skua (autumn) - just really really lovely to spin; a little bit rustic with some quite long staples.
Tilf (winter) - this one is crimpy, comforting and surprisingly soft.
Sample boxes for spinners
I know many of you are either new to spinning or keen about starting and might be curious about trying out my blends, so I’m putting together sample boxes so you can try them out. I’ll start with a smaller box with 25g of each blend, but would like to offer a larger bundle of perhaps 50g or 100g of each, so do let me know which you would love to see most.
I’m also going to be stocking spindles so you’ll be able to treat it as a learn to spin kit. I’ve a feeling these are going to be popular, so if you’d like to be the first to hear about their release, sign up for my mailing list.
Yarn knitting kits to make your own Sennen Sweater
Sophie Hemmings, The Knit Purl Girl, recently released the Sennen Sweater, a colourwork jumper using my hand-dyed Mendip DK. This sweater is such a lovely knit. At first glance, it seems like a simple piece, but Sophie has added thoughtful details that make it really special, like lateral braids and a unique sleeve shaping that creates an amazing silhouette.
To make it easy to cast on this colourwork jumper, I’ve put together some yarn knitting kits in a few colours that I thought Sophie would enjoy. These kits are available on my website and make it simple to get all the yarn you need in one go (plus, it’s slightly cheaper than buying the hand-skein skeins individually).
You can find my Sennen Sweater yarn knitting kits here and the knitting pattern is available on Sophie’s website or on Ravelry.
Intro and outro music is Dead from the Beginning, Alive to the End by Doctor Turtle.
