We are really excited to be introducing a spinning range to Knit With Attitude. I am especially excited because I’ve have really got the spinning bug. I have been spinning a lot of Marina Skua fibre so I’m super pleased to be able to offer it here at Knit With Attitude. Please buy it and save me from myself, I just want to spin it all!

We have introduced Skua Blend, Marina’s first fibre blend which is hand dyed by her in her studio/home in Wiltshire, UK. Dyed using non toxic synthetic dyes. Marina prioritises sustainability, so she reuses her dye water as many times as possible and makes sure no dye run-off enters the water system.

Skua Blend is a combination of 100% British Wool. Working with a small family-run mill in Gloucestershire Marina combined the fibres of five different sheep breeds: Dorset Horn, Cheviot, Max Loaghtan, Teeswater and Jacobs. Utilising the different colours and characteristics of the breeds to create a fibre blend that is a joy to spin. Using the natural qualities that Marina herself loves in wool, producing a natural non-superwash fibre with a slightly rustic finish.

If you are intrigued to see how Marina’s Skua Blend spins up. Here is one of her earlier colours I spun last year using my drop spindle. I love how the colours of hand dyed tops blend from one to another so I try and preserve this when I’m spinning. My favourite method is to split the tops in half along the length and then spin two identical singles. I then ply these singles together in the same direction. That way the colours flow into each other as they appear in the dyed top. But there are so many ways of tackling a spinning project which is part of the fun of spinning your own yarn.

I sent some questions over to Maria so we can get to know her little bit about her and her fibres.

How long have you been dyeing and what inspired you to start?
I first started dyeing yarn in 2015 – my goodness, it’s been almost 10 years! I had experience with dyes beforehand; when I was growing up my mother and I would periodically dye a batch of clothes in the washing machine (or occasionally by hand in a large bucket) to get a bit more wear out of them. And I had done some work with dyes when studying textiles for GCSE, so the concept wasn’t completely new to me. And so when I started seeing beautiful hand-dyed yarn in shops and on Instagram, I wanted to give it a go. I already had fibre reactive dyes in the house from previous tie-dye experiments, and there was some undyed white wool yarn I’d inherited from a family member’s yarn stash. I wound it into a few imprecise skeins, mixed up and splashed some dye about on them, and was immediately obsessed. There was no coming back.

You use British fibres and wools, tell us about why thats important to you?
When I started buying undyed yarn specifically to dye and sell, I immediately only went for the British wool yarns that were available. I was already becoming horrified at the negative impact textile production can have both on the environment and on the people and the animals involved in the industry. Choosing British wool meant that, as well as keeping yarn miles fairly low, it gave the come assurance of decent welfare standards throughout the supply chain.
These days I aim for complete traceability on my fibres, and try to choose farms and mills that are as local as possible, which means as well as reducing the environmental footprint of my work, I’m reinvesting into local economies and helping support jobs that I believe are valuable.

How did you develop the fibre combination that makes up the Skua Blend?
My goals for the blend were pretty much selfish! I wanted to create a spinning fibre that was entirely catered to my own taste – hence having multiple different-coloured breeds and a variety of textures in there. Wingham Wool Work, who produce the blend in Gloucestershire, invited me to try out their custom blend service and highlighted the variety of beautiful naturally coloured breeds of wool they had. I selected a range of British breeds that were guaranteed to come from British farms, and spun small samples of them on their own. I wrote notes about my thoughts and experience spinning each, then tried out blending a few of my favourites on my hand carders and spinning those. The breeds that ended up in Skua blend were the ones I had the most fun spinning – for different reasons – which also offered different natural colours for a visually rich, heathery blend.

What inspires the colours you dye?
So many things! I take a lot of inspiration from nature; not just plants (which I love), but landscapes and minerals and skies and animals. With some of my dyeing I have a very specific vision in mind for what I’m trying to create. In other cases it’s completely improvised and I don’t know which colour is going to go next into the pot until I’ve already started mixing it.

Do you have a favourite colour to dye and or knit and spin?
I gravitate quite frequently towards greens, but I’d say the defining feature of the colours I most enjoy working with is that they often incorporate some naturally coloured fibre. Dyeing on top of or blending with wool that was already grey or brown or fawn when it came off the sheep’s back lends a beautiful depth and richness to colours that dye on its own can’t achieve.

How long have you been knitting and spinning for?
I started knitting when I was about seven, taught the very basics by my Grandma. I then put it down, forgot how, and was taught by my other Granny when I was about 12. I then started knitting more seriously when I discovered Ravelry when in university in about 2010, and since then haven’t really put the needles down.
The spinning came very shortly after my first yarn dyeing experiments at the end of 2015 – through the joys of Instagram I realised that a spinning wheel wasn’t necessary for spinning yarn, and that drop spindles were small and comparatively inexpensive. As with dyeing, I was then completely obsessed. Not only could I make the yarn be whatever colour I wanted, but I could design the entire yarn from the fibre up – choosing the fibre, weight, twist: everything! Into the rabbit hole I went, irretrievably.

When it comes to spinning do you have a favourite spinning method, do you prefer a wheel or drop spindle?
Though I got started on a drop spindle (which I really do recommend for beginners), once I was able to get a second-hand spinning wheel with the help of some generous family members, I haven’t really gone back to the spindle. I occasionally use my Turkish spindle for very small samples and fibre tests, but I now have two wheels and use them for pretty much everything.
My original wheel is a 70s Ashford Traditional, which I have a jumbo flyer and bobbins on. Though it offers so much flexibility, these days I only really use it for plying. My other wheel is a Westbury Wheel, manufactured in the 80s very close to where I now live. It’s a delightful little thing; it sounds rather chatty when spinning, but has a weighted treadle and can be set up either for double or single drive. I only use it double drive for simplicity’s sake, and it’s just so much fun to spin on.
In terms of method, my default spin is a bit of a hybrid approach. If I’m just letting my hands do what is most comfortable, I’ll usually end up with a short-to-medium draw, and I prefer not to smooth or compress my yarn as I’m spinning. I generally like to let the character of the fibre come through in my yarn, and so will often modify my method depending what I’m spinning.

What is your craft of choice at the moment, knitting, spinning or something else?
Oh help. Too many! I have fibre prep for my next spinning project waiting for me in baskets, there’s a big spinning project on the wheel, I’m just warping up my floor loom for my biggest weaving project to date, and I’ve just cast on a new DK-weight jumper in yarn I spun a couple of years ago. I can’t choose, and so bounce between them all depending how I feel! As I’m often working on bigger projects these days, it’s nice to have a different craft to fall back on when my hands or brain get tired of one.

Thank you Marina for the insight into your spinning and dyeing. If you feel inspired to take up spinning yourself we stock a range of dyed and undyed Skua Blend as well as drop spindles. We are also offering spinning workshops.