Marina Skua Podcast Ep 36 – Knitting for a wet summer, yarn spinning and dyeing adventures

[Music] hello and welcome to the marina scale podcast my name is marina i'm a knitwear designer and yarn dyer based in bath in the southwest of england and in this podcast i talk about my yarn crafts and knitting and often a little bit of seasonal making as well now usually this time of year i really like to spend a lot of my making time outside in the garden in the last episode if you watched you will have seen i've been doing a bit of spinning out there but recently it's been so rainy it's just been raining endlessly so i've spent most of my making time sitting right here on the sofa but that does mean that i have been getting loads done and i have quite a few fun things to show you today uh the first up is one that i'm wearing not the cardigan the cardigan is snow land by jessica mcdonald it's a lovely pattern on reflection um i'm going to share this because i think it's something that comes up quite a lot but people don't realize that it's a thing that happens to a lot of people um when you're working flat your gauge is often different from working in the round and that is really quite obvious in this cardi so it's worked from the top down in rows and then you separate for the body and the sleeves and i don't know if you can see there but there's a point here where i cast uh cast on some underarm stitches for the body the body continued to work flat then i picked up the sleeves the sleeves are skinnier and so you end up with this slight extra bit of fabric around here and that's just because working sleeves in the round especially small circumferences um as you often get on sleeves your gauge is often tighter because most people knit tighter than they purl and so when you're working flat you're purling every other row whereas for stockinette this is whereas when you're working in the round you're knitting every round and that's something that has been noticeable in some projects for me but generally hasn't been that much of an issue because of the construction style with this one it's quite noticeable um and it occasionally bothers me it's not at all the fault of the pattern um is not going to bother me enough that i would undo it or anything i still wear this cardigan loads and i love it but it's just something i thought i'd mention because it might be useful to someone check your gauge both flat and in the round and size up a needle size for the sleeves if you need to but with that i'm going to take it off and show you the top underneath which is a pattern i have just released um it is one that i did show a couple of episodes ago uh this is the dryopturist top i think it probably didn't have a name then um it's a fairly simple shape um it's just got a straight body and then a bit of shaping around the arms and a nice round neckline and it's got a twisted stitch detail not twisted stitch sorry traveling stitch which is almost like a faux cable running all the way up the sides and then around the armholes up to the shoulder and it's got a nice little split hem there and it's been a really really great top this summer um as i mentioned in the uk it's not been particularly warm so it's nice to have a very lightweight wool layer so this one is knitted in yarn by wall decanted they're a fairly new yarn company based in the southeast of england and they're working with british wool and focusing on the slightly softer side of british wool so this is a shetland and blue-faced leicester blend it's quite a fine yarn which makes a really lightweight fabric which i think is really really nice for a garment especially when you're going to be layering up because i find like i like wearing lots of layers of knitwear but um with heavier yarns it can get quite bulky and so means often that i will only do that when it's really chilly whereas at the moment it's not particularly nice out but it's still not actually cold but i can wear this i've got a little vest underneath it but you don't need to i've often been wearing it just against my skin and yeah it's a garment that i i really enjoyed making um it's got i feel just the right amount of interest so it's mostly stockinette but then you've got little bits of interest down the sides just to keep things moving along a bit um and yeah so the pattern is now on ravelry and on my website and world accounted are also selling kits for the yarn so you'll if you wanted to make it with their yarn which i recommend because it's a lovely yarn um you you can get the quantity of yarn you need for your size and they have those ready on their website i'll put a link to them below as well as link to just the pattern if you were interested in that now the next thing i have to show you is one that i was i think decently on the way with last time but is now finished and that is this jumper which i am calling opula now this one is one that i have designed using my mendip four ply yarn so the main color is beech and the contrast color is teal they're both on the stormy base which is a naturally colored base and i really really love how this one turned out um i yeah i it's up for test knitting at the moment so the pattern is going to be out in a little under a couple of months so at some point probably in october um so you've got the color work on the yolk which i'm really really keen on um i think it might be one of my favorite yogurt designs so far uh and then little bits of color work transitioning into the contrast color for the hammond cuffs and i went for sort of half length sleeves on me they hit just around my elbow um i'll put in a photo of me wearing it so that you can see how it looks um and yeah it's it's one that i really really love i really enjoy how it turned out and i can't wait to see my test knitter versions because it looks like there are some excellent color combinations coming up so again i'll put a link for the yarns that i used for this one in the description box below generally everything i talk about where there could be a link to find there should be one in the description box if there isn't just give me a comment and i'll remember to add it in um so that's that one i really have been going for it with the designs recently i'm loving working on designs especially garments which is something that when i was a bit newer as a designer i was very nervous of doing just because it's a lot of time investment um for something that especially when you're starting out there isn't much guaranteed return i mean there's sort of never guaranteed return um but it's easier when starting out to do more accessories and while i love knitting accessories i've always loved garments so much more um and so it's really nice to be working on those and to have people saying nice things about them so the next one is one that i actually only started a couple of weeks ago but have made decent progress on there is another design that i'm working on that i'm not going to show you because it's for a publication and yeah so this one is one that i've just done the body of uh so it's bottom up starting with the hem this is again wool decanted yarn so it's you can probably see the same color as the top that i'm wearing uh which is a natural undyed color um it's got it's mostly stockinette but then it's got these sort of wedges at the side with moss stitch and some sort of traveling stitches creating a bit of a detail there um so this one is going to be a fairly straightforward drop shoulder jumper just with those nice little details there and that's something i'm enjoying as well you can see it with this one where i've loved designing color work but i also really like a combination of fairly simple structure and interesting texture um and i think an undyed but slightly heathery yarn like this one is perfect to show off something like that so you can see i still haven't finished the neckline that's going to be in two by two ribbing like the hem and then it'll be one that i probably end up folding over so it's like a double neckline would be really squishy and then i need to pick up for the sleeves and do those so this is one that i don't have a name for yet um it's tiny bit creased because it's been folded up um yes i don't have a name for it yet i generally decide the names for things uh when i'm about to put them out for test knitting and i need to set the pattern up on ravelry so that i can get the test knit up code thing and then ravelry asks me for a pattern name and that's the point which is like ah ah yes i have to have to do a name for it now and then i spend ages doing weird little brainstorms and looking at anglo-saxon dictionaries and playing around with letters and things until i hit something that i like um opula which is what i called this one is is just a silly made-up word which is what a lot of them are i like playing with languages and yeah yeah so yes that one i will be working on again once the other design is finished because there's a deadline on that one and there isn't on this one and i'm doing a fair bit of juggling with all the designs at the moment and it's it's really fun actually it's it's nice to be able to spend the time focusing on design work but yes it's not all been knitting um in the last episode i showed some plying that i was doing of some hand spun yarn i have now finished that i have three lovely skeins of this yarn it's it's a color that i've really been struggling to describe because um it's a blend of dark purple very very bright pink orange yellow and a bit of whitey cream um which means it's quite a complex color once everything's all blended up but i've realized that it's actually exactly the color of um the dried acilia or yellow yarrow flowers from my garden last year which when they were fresh were a clean bright pink but now they're dried they've got that sort of slightly dusty tone to them and this is exactly the color um so yes i have mentioned before it's a blend of mohair blue faced leicester soy and a little bit of shetland teas watercross all of them are ones i dyed myself and then blended up and so i've got two 150 gram skeins here and then this one is a 70 gram skein um which is is a fair bit of yarn i often get bored of um long-term spinning projects and larger quantities because i find that spinning doesn't do quite as much to hold my attention as knitting does um because there's sort of less to gauge the progress you're making um and fewer steps so knitting you often you know you have a marker for the beginning if you're working in the round even if you're just working stockinette you have a marker for the beginning of the round and you can see how it's growing whereas spinning you're always kind of covering up the work you've already done as it builds on the bobbin um but it is something that i really enjoy i just tend to do it in slightly smaller stints so this one i've been working on for a few months and i'm really glad to have it finished now um and it's probably going to be another few months before i knit with this which is something i'm quite fine with especially with yarn that i've spent so much time working on um yeah i i would hate to count how much time i've actually spent making this because it's hours and hours of just sitting and spinning and then playing and drafting and all of that and i love that and i think it's really nice to spend a bit of time with the yarn in the stage that it is like this before deciding what to knit with it um which might be a slightly strange thing but i think it's nice to appreciate those materials um and it'll give me time to think what it's going to be suitable for i already have a couple of patterns in mind but i'm gonna sort of sit with them for a while and see if it seems right and then eventually i'll do a little bit little bit of swatching and see if i'm getting a sort of fabric i like with the correct gauge and things like that and then i'll work it out now another somewhat recent yarn based project is this one now this is yarn that was sent to me um a few months ago by my lovely friend cat of the heather and hops podcast if you've not come across her podcast before i highly recommend you give it a watch um she talks a lot about sort of the mindfulness of knitting and a bit of the history of the craft and creates a really lovely comforting atmosphere and i highly recommend it and yeah this is yarn that she had had spun up from wool local to her that she sourced in hertfordshire it's 50 jacobs and 50 valet black nose and i mentioned that i hadn't tried valley black nose before she very kindly sent me a couple of skeins um these were a natural sort of creamy white when they arrived and i decided they would be perfect for a bit of natural diet experimentation so i dyed them with wood seeds from my garden now anyone who's grown wood before knows that once you get a decent crop going you end up with so many seeds like far more seeds than you could possibly need to plant for next year's plants um i had quite a few messages this summer saying hi i know you do natural dying do you want any wood seeds oh thank you that's really kind but i already have plenty um [Music] the seeds look like this i don't know how well you can see there um but they're this really interesting sort of purply black color and [Music] so it's kind of it's always fascinating to see what color natural dye sources give because it's often it often bears no relation to the actual color of the dye stuff itself um and so i i recorded a video of dyeing up this yarn it's on my patreon channel if you're interested in seeing that i did have to do a bit of modification to get this color um and it was a really interesting experience um and i i actually had no idea what color to expect and i am very pleased that i got this lovely olive green because it is one of my favorite colors um so again this is one that i will spend a while thinking what to make is definitely a rustic yarn it's got quite a bit of toothiness to it i know that kat had made a pair of slippers from hers and i think well i if i had one skein i think slippers would be great but i've got two and so i would want to use them in a project together and i have some other undyed naturally coloured yarn in a similar weight so i might end up playing with these and also some white and grey and brown yarns and maybe combine them into something for a bit of color work i think that could be really pretty um if you're interested in the yarn i'm not sure if she actually has any left but this is the shire four ply um it's 275 meters per hundred grams um cat hasn't asked me to do any of this by the way she just sent me some because she's nice and yeah it's a lovely yarn and i really enjoy trying out new wools and new and experimenting to see what those yarns are going to be suitable for um so yes again something that i'm really going to enjoy planning a project for once i have a little bit more brain space for project planning one more thing i'd like to show you i realize this is a slightly show and tell heavy episode but i hope that's okay with you um this is issue six of making stories magazine um which i've had my copy for a little while but the official release date is the first of september um i wanted to wait to show it off until uh pre-orders are open at local yarn shops and i think subscriber copies have started arriving as well um [Music] i get my copy a little bit earlier because i get a contributor copy because i tech edit for the magazine um just for full disclosure there but i just wanted to show you a couple of the things that i really like the theme is skyward which is just a really nice theme is something i love to do when i go out on walks i spend a lot of time staring at the sky and yes so there are some lovely patterns and a couple of really nice articles in here um a particularly good one on mindfulness in knitting which is i recommend it's got some good advice in it um this one by valentino valentina kosciani is uh called cirro and it has a lovely sort of undulating pattern on the yoke which i think is really pretty um you're going to have to bear with me while i look through because as always i did not mark my pages in advance um these are the vitrai socks by let me check that it's yes um [Music] they've got some really pretty um sort of traveling stitches and little cables um i mean honestly i really like them to look at i probably won't make them because i'm hating making socks at the moment i still have a half finished pair of socks which have been sitting on the needles for months and haven't got anywhere um i don't know what it is i love wearing handmade socks cannot stand knitting them and i'm trying to work out whether it's worth suffering them um trying to find a good shot that shows off this one i think this is quite cool um this is ley lines like let me check forgive me if i don't pronounce this correctly i think it's justin riveta or kirsten rivetta um which has really cool diagonal sort of stitch pattern on the front and on the sleeves it's a really really lovely one um again i'll include a link to making stories site so hopefully you'll be able to have a look at some of the photos of these and then one more that i really like and i just want to show you this photo because it's amazing look how good that spread is um so this one's called boy arena by elena i'm sure sorry um if i know where a name's from i have a much better chance of being able to pronounce it correctly but sometimes you just have to guess um [Music] and i hope that's showing up but it's got beautiful cables going up the sides and under the arms [Applause] which i think is really really lovely so yes there are some really nice patterns in there the whole color scheme is just really calming and that's a fun one having said it's calming that one's a bit more jazzy um but yes it's it's very soothing to look at and it's a lovely read um and there are some really really nice patterns in there um so i hope you'll take a look so that is all i'm going to share for now i really hope you've enjoyed this episode quick reminder this is the dry octorus top it's out now on ravelry and my website and there are kits available from will be counted and if you want to make sure that you catch my videos as they come out please do subscribe it would be great it also helps youtube know that people actually like my videos and if you want to keep up with me between episodes um i post on instagram and you can sign up to my newsletter and so i'm now going to leave you with a few extra shots of this one and some views of my completely chaotic and overgrown garden and so until next time bye [Music] [Music] do [Music] do [Music] you

Channel: Marina Skua

Views: 3,601

Keywords: knitting, yarn, craft, dyeing, making, seasonal

Id: -judQHnHaJ0

Length: 26min 55sec (1615 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 20 2021