I'm officially back to work and have finally managed to film and edit a proper podcast video for you! Here's a look at some of the craft projects I've been working on, as well as a look at all the things in the most recent shop update (Friday 16th October).
If you’d like to catch up with what crafts I’ve been up to whilst on leave, including my latest knitting projects, spinning projects and even a bit of behind the scenes action then you can catch up over on Patreon.
Autumn knitting, cosy spinning projects, lots of local fleece and new limited edition hand-dyed yarn and spinning fibre.
The morning mists are descending, the afternoon sunlight is at its autumnal best, and chillier weather means cosy craft season is upon us. I've been dyeing up a storm and am working on new (secret!) knit designs in the background.
I've been working with more local wool than ever, and am so excited to bring you some new things, including, finally, some new hand-dyed yarn! I've got fleece to sort, unusual spinning fibre ideas to experiment with, and a 'to design' list that I don't think I'll ever get on top of, but I'm having loads of fun.
I am wearing Opula
Opula is a stranded colourwork yoke jumper I designed for my hand-dyed Mendip 4-ply yarn. The design itself is inspired by the flowing, sinuous lines of Art Nouveau design, with lots of crossing and intersecting like roots and vines, with abstracted flourishes and ornamentation. And I love it!
The knitting pattern includes instructions for two sleeve lengths: a regular full-length jumper sleeve and an elbow-length version that you can wear as a top. I'm wearing the jumper version I knitted for my Out of the Dark MAL at the beginning of 2025, in Sage and Night on the Cloudy base. Now the weather's turning cooler, it’s perfect.
Speaking of Mendip, stocks of both my 4-Ply and DK are looking rather low at the moment. I'm in the queue at the mill for more, but sadly they haven't started spinning yet. I'm hoping it'll be with me by the end of winter, but I'm not making any promises, as the small mills are under a lot of pressure at the moment. I'm doing other fun things in the meantime, though, so there'll be more to share on that front soon!
Find the Opula knitting pattern on my website
Find the Opula knitting pattern on Ravelry
My knitting projects
I'm still knitting the saddle shoulder sweater using John Arbon Appledore Lace
I've been slowly working on this whilst I've been on leave, but one of my newer knitting projects is a simple saddle shoulder jumper for my father. I struggled to find a published knitting pattern online that I liked for this, which is one of the reasons I became a knitwear designer in the first place, but I eventually settled with Vintergröna by Stine HoelgaardJohansen, a free sweater knitting pattern by Järbo Garn I found on Ravelry.
I’m knitting with Appledore Lace held double in the colour Billy Down Pippin. I'm sure you're aware of this by now, but I love John Arbon's Appledore yarn. It's one of my favourite yarns in the world, and I have designed patterns, like my Scrumper Waistcoat and Cardigan and knit with it on numerous occasions.
The colours are super special because they blend so many colours together to give these really beautiful, complex and nuanced shades. Billy Down Pippin is one of the less crazy colours, and it is lovely. The yarn also holds up so well. Not a soft yarn, but I find it really practical and very wearable, and, as I said, the colours are beautiful. I can’t wait to knit more with it soon.
John Arbon knitting kits for Beechmast are available
I've touched on this in my previous blog post, but John Arbon have added new colours to their Appledore yarn range, including my own limited-edition shade, Fallen Leaf, which I designed with them for my Beechmast Sweater knitting pattern, Yay! My orangey shade has been renamed Blenheim Orange to fit with the rest of the apple-inspired colour names, and the entire collection is just glorious.
If you are looking for an autumnal knitting project to cast on, I'm obviously a bit biased, but Beechmast is a good one. It's worked from the top down with a classic drop-shoulder silhouette. 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, and it's altogether a very 'Marina Skua' knit design.
John Arbon have put together a selection of Beechmast knitting kits which include all the Appledore Aran yarn you need plus a lovely project bag to keep it all in. There are currently 3 shades to choose from, including my own, Blenheim Orange, of course.
I now have an affiliate link for John Arbon, too, so if you're thinking about getting a knitting kit and casting on Beechmast this cosy season, I would love it if you bought it via my affiliate link or using my code MARINASKUA. I'll earn a small commission from your order, without it costing you anything extra.
Find Beechmast knitting pattern on my website
Find Beechmast knitting pattern on Ravelry
My zwartbles cardigan is complete (kind of)
My chocolatey brown cardigan knitted in my undyed Zwartbles DK yarn is more or less complete. I think I may have started knitting this at the start of my leave and so you won't have seen much of it yet. It’s a saddle-shoulder design with rather generous sleeves and angled pockets on the front. The basic shaping is based on my Quickbeam Cardigan, although I've made quite a few changes, including the 2x2 ribbing and different sleeve shaping.
I've written up my notes for the design, and I think there's a good chance I'll turn it into a knitting pattern eventually. I might even make another version in Mendip DK so I can photograph it properly and show off all the details.
For now, it needs slightly shorter sleeves and some buttons. I had a look through my button collection and realised I was short of the 18mm ones I wanted, which seemed like a good excuse to expand my range of handmade wooden buttons by Tom Dyson. You'll now find them in 11.5mm, 15mm, 18mm and 20mm sizes.
The Zwartbles DK is still available in the shop. It's super super local wool, from a smallholding just a couple of villages over from me. It's been wonderful working with so much local fleece, and it's definitely something I have been pursuing a bit more this year.
My spinning projects
My stash of handspun yarn is growing
I covered this whilst I was away, but my lovely friend Lorna Thread and Yarn gave me some of her beautiful plant-dyed Cottage Blend spinning fibre, which I planned to spin and ply with some fawn Shetland, also kindly gifted to me by Wingham Wool.
I spun the two singles and plied them together to create a glorious rather fine, gently marled handspun yarn that reminds me of the haze of a summer’s morning. Despite starting with very similar amounts of each fibre and spinning them in what I thought was a similar way, I seem to have spun Lorna's ever so slightly finer. So I’ve ended up with a small skein of Lorna’s yarn leftover, which i’ll be able to combine with the main hank of handspun.
I’ve not calculated meterage just yet, but these will become some sort of very special handspun project at some point in the future.
My naturally-dyed fleece flax blend has become handspun yarn!
This is a very long-standing spinning project I have been documenting for a very very long time. It's a blend of fleece from Fernhill Fibre and flax from Flaxland that I have naturally dyed with onion skins and rhubarb root.
I’ve talked about this at length and you can watch the whole process in my Fleece to Fabric YouTube playlist I'll also be sharing a video update on the spinning soon!
I've spun the first two skeins and am now making my way through a second bag of fluff. I'll be very glad when I've spun it all! Realistically, I'll probably put the resulting handspun yarn aside for quite a while before turning it into something woven. I've already got a project on my floor loom that needs finishing, and that needs to be done before any new weaving projects can commence. One thing at a time!
Lots of super local wool fleece and spinning experiments
Earlier this year, I collected fleece from Dilly and Whitney, two magnificent Dutch Spotted x Suffolk sheep belonging to a friend. They're therapy sheep, which I think is rather lovely.
Rampisham Hill Mill has now processed the very best parts of their fleeces into carded sliver, and I spun up a couple of small samples to see how they behaved. The two fleeces were surprisingly different, both in their feel and how they spun, despite coming from sisters.
I had a limited quantity of their fibre available in my latest shop update, but if you missed out, don't worry. I have plenty more local fleece to work through, so there will be more limited-edition fibre and other local woolly things to come.
I also talk about some of my waste-fibre spinning experiments in the video, including what I've been doing with the rougher bits that weren't suitable for the mill. Skip to around 26 minutes to watch this section.
A look at the latest shop update
Speaking of spinning fibre, in the podcast, I also take you through my latest shop update, including new hand-dyed spinning fibre and some special limited-edition yarn.
There were eight shades of hand-dyed wool top across my British wool blends, with a mix of brighter colours and moodier, autumnal shades. I'm also delighted to introduce the first guest yarn in my shop: Devonia 4-Ply! I love John Arbon Textiles, and the lustrous, drapey and soft Devonia is so different from my usual Mendip. I've started with the 4-ply base for now, and had so much fun creating these four limited-edition shades.
You can skip to around 30 minutes for this bit!
Join my crafty community on Patreon
Before I sign off, I want to say a proper thank you to my incredible patrons. So many of you stuck around to support me whilst I was on leave, and that support has meant such a lot. It also meant I could invest in more stock, including SO much fleece (Dilly and Whitney included), which means I've got some very exciting things coming up.
If you'd like to join this lovely bunch of crafty people, you can! There are lots of benefits to being a Patron, but one of the main ones is getting early access to my shop updates, 24 hours before everyone else so you don't miss out on any of the new stuff. I'm also going to be working on more videos, some demonstrations and such that people have asked for, which will be lots of fun. You can read more about joining my crafty community on Patreon here - it would be wonderful to have you.
There is probably so much more I could talk about, but it can all wait until next time.
I'm not sure how often videos will be coming, but they will come. Thank you for being here; it’s been so lovely chatting to you, and I'll catch up with you next time.
Bye bye!
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.
