This update is super long overdue! What can I say, I’ve been pretty busy the past few months. Aside from some wonderful trips to Holland (among others for two very special weddings) we recently went on a fantastic 2-week vacation to la belle France. It was great to get some sun, and especially to get to spend some more time with my parents and brothers who came to meet us out there and stayed on the same campsite as us, where we had all rented cottages steps away from the beach. It was Noortje’s first time on the beach and she loved it! She had just begun to walk on her own some 10 days or so before we left, so at first she was a little miffed to discover that it’s quite a bit harder to walk in the soft beach sand than in other places, but pretty soon she figured out how to do this, too, and she had a ton of fun playing in the sand and wading around in the shallow pools of sea water at low tide.
Meanwhile, I have been designing and knitting like crazy and this is mostly what has kept me from updating the site. Seriously, sometimes this knitting designing business almost seems like a full-time job! I love it though and feel so lucky that people enjoy knitting my patterns. I love designing them, that’s for sure 
As for the immediate future, four of my patterns will be published in the upcoming months in Yarn Forward magazine, three will be published in books and I’m working on a couple of others that I intend to publish here on the website. In the next few months, I think I will have to take a short break from knitting for any other venues than my own website, as we’ll be moving to the States in less than three months, and I won’t be able to work with deadlines around then. As soon as we’re settled in our new hometown however I hope to get back to submitting designs to magazine and book projects, as well as keep adding to the website.
As for the website, I took some time to revamp the website. Although this new look is not all that different from the old one, I feel the new color scheme and lay-out make it look cleaner and easier to navigate, and it was high time I separate all the patterns by different categories instead of having them all on one huge page. The different pattern pages are now clothing patterns, accessories patterns, baby & kids patterns and last but not least free patterns. I hope you’ll enjoy the new look!
I just added a new pattern to the website: Lugano, a cabled featuring an alternating “peek-a-boo” style cable pattern. I designed Lugano as an anniversary present for my husband for our “4 years together” anniversary this past December. The version I made for him was knit in Rowan Scottish Tweed DK and can be seen below, the other sample I knit in Knit Picks City Tweed DK. I’m modelling that one myself in the pictures below. Both yarns were great to work with and it was a very fun (and reasonably quick) knit altogether. The hat comes in two sizes, size small to fit a woman’s head of between 20-24 inches and size large to fit a man’s head of between 22-26 inches. More information can be found on the pattern page, and this is also were the pattern can be purchased for $1.99. Just follow this link: Lugano. And here are some photos:
I’ve also finished and taken photos recently of another pattern, Twente, which I designed for our little Noortje. It’s a cardigan in a chunky variegated wool-blend yarn that is perfect for wear outdoors in the cool (or rather cold somedays!) Spring we’re having here in England, and it was named for the region of the Netherlands I was born in, and where I bought the yarn while visiting our family. I have not yet found the time to write up and grade the pattern for this cardi unfortunately, but hope to be able to do that soon, and then it will be available on the website as well. In the meantime though I really wanted to share a picture or two of our sweetie wearing it:
Isn’t she cute? She laughs a lot but for some reason tends to look very serious in photos, so we had fun trying to get her to smile for this one! In the end it was Sophie, our golden retriever, diving into the bushes that made her laugh, and I quickly snapped some photos.
I’ve had a two more patterns published in the past few days. First of all, there is Peggy Sue, a vintage-inspired short-sleeved cardigan that was published in Knit on the Net, issue 10. This is one of my favorite patterns of mine, as it’s fun to knit, doesn’t take a whole lot of yarn and most of all is wonderfully wearable this time of year. This is a free pattern and can be found here: Peggy Sue. Here’s a picture:
Here’s my own version of the cardigan, in one of my favorite yarns, Louet Riverstone. This was knit in a slightly heavier yarn than the cardigan that appeared in Knit on the Net, and is a teeny bit more cropped as well:
I’ve also published Kensington Fingerless Gloves. This is a pair of fingerless gloves that use the same style and lace pattern as my beret pattern Kensington, so they kind of go together . This pattern can be purchased for $1.99 here. This is what they look like:
Venice was amazing! We were there for a whole week, from February 27 till March 6. We had rented an apartment and had plenty of time to explore all the wonderful sights and enjoy the yummy food. It was great being back in Italy again, too – we do miss it sometimes! It was Noortje’s very first big trip abroad other than trips going to see her oma and opa in Holland, and she loved it. She’s quite the little traveller!
And another design of mine was published on the same day! (see my other post below about Nocturne in Yarn Forward magazine). My pattern Scallop Lace Cardigan was published in the Classic Elite Yarns Web-Letter, issue 126. It is available for download for free here: Scallop Lace Cardigan. This design is exactly what the name implies: are cardigan with scallop lace detailing around the waist and on the sleeves It also features a low, plunging neckline and a garter stitch collar, hem and cuffs.
This was such a fun design to work on, and I completely fell in love with the yarn, Classic Elite’s Wool Bam Boo. The color I picked was Havanna Red and I used a set of vintage wooden buttons that I had bought on Amsterdam’s famed Noordermarkt (one of my favorite markets in the world to visit – with lots of wonderful vintage stuff and organic food, every Monday and Saturday, I highly recommend visiting it if you’re ever in Amsterdam). I had been waiting for the right design to use the buttons for and this was it! Here are some pictures of the cardigan:
I just had my first pattern published in Yarn Forward. I’m a huge fan of this British knitting magazine and I’m thrilled to have my pattern be a part of the April 2010 issue, Yarn Forward number 23! I’m honored to be one of the featured designers in this issue as well.
The pattern’s name is Nocturne and it’s a short-sleeved swing-style cardigan top. The design was inspired by the trapeze A-line silhouettes of the sixties and will flatter virtually any shape. The retro contrasting hem is also reminiscent of vintage designs, but a solid color version of this cardigan would look fab as well. Worked in an aran-weight yarn, it’s the perfect layering item for chilly early Spring days. Much of Nocturne’s shaping comes from the transition from k1, p1 rib to stocking stitch halfway through the pattern; consequently this is a fairly straight-forward project, perfect for a first-time cardigan project.
The pattern is currently only available in Yarn Forward. Yarn Forward is available at newsstands around the UK and can be subscribed to on the Yarn Forward website. After the summer the pattern will be for sale on my website as well. Here is a picture of the pattern in the magazine:
And here is a picture of the version I knitted for myself:
I have just designed and knit my quickest project ever! It’s a little baby beret for Noortje. We took some very cute pictures of it yesterday, and what’s nice is that because it’s a fairly loose-fitting hat, Noortje doesn’t mind wearing it. She’s not a big fan of tight hats. I plan to self-publish it so it will be up on the site soon.
I’m very excited that as of yesterday, one of my hat patterns, Kensington, is a part of the Knit Picks Independent Designer Partnership. Here is the pattern’s page on the Knit Picks website. I absolutely love Knit Picks yarn and often design with it, so it’s definitely a bit of a thrill to have one of my patterns for sale on their website. I would love to design more patterns for them. Also, as my sweet husband said when he saw the pattern page, “that’s where I got your Christmas yarn from!”
And speaking of Christmas gifts, this Christmas one of the things I got Brandon was the Tudors on DVD, and one of the things he got me was the Tudors on the DVD, too. We bought thought the other would like it, and we were both right. We’ve been watching it for the past week or two and we’re hooked! It’s not the most historically accurate series, and every once in a while we have to pause it to comment on things that aren’t right historically or that just seem very anachronistic, but it is really good, and very entertaining.
Other things I’ve very much enjoyed recently are the books Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, and Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. I’m such a fan of Neil Gaiman. His writing is just amazing and I love his imagination. We have several signed books by him and one of my birthday gifts two weeks ago was a Neil Gaiman poem, written in the very cool lettering of Todd Klein, who has also done the lettering for the Sandman graphic novels. It’s signed by both of them as well, a very cool piece of art!
A few days ago, I celebrated my 29th birthday. Can’t believe I’m nearly 30! It’s great though. I had a wonderful birthday, just hanging out with Noortje and Sophie during the day, and in the evening Brandon made a fantastic yummy dinner for me with some of my favorite things (I’m so lucky that he is a real “kitchen prince” as we say in Holland!). I got some amazing gifts too, and even got to blow out candles – something I hadn’t done in years! It was very fun.
Meanwhile, it’s been a while again since I last got to update my blog. We spent the holidays with our family in the Netherlands, which was absolutely wonderful. It was Noortje’s first Christmas and I think she was quite overwhelmed by all the many gifts! Meanwhile, it is also very nice to be home again, and to stay home for a while. The trip by car via the ferry is really a bit too long for our little one and after travelling back and forth three times in as many months, it’s good to take a break from travelling and get back to our daily routine for a bit.
Our girly is eating lots of solids now. She has a fruit or veggie in the morning and baby rice cereal in the evening, which she loves. I also keep running after her as she rolls around the room – she can’t even crawl yet and is getting into trouble already! She’s so much fun to hang out with, we have a blast playing at home together, going strolling in the park with Sophie and meeting with friends. Here are two recent photos of our Noortje. She has the biggest beautiful blue eyes:
As for knitting, I’m working on a few different designs. Most are smaller items, though one is a bigger one, a top. I’m also very excited about three designs that are all finished and will be published in the next month or so. I’ll be sure to post about it here when they’re published!
My very first Knitty pattern just got published in the Winter 2009 issue of Knitty Magazine! Here’s Duet:
The design can be worn as a neckscarf and a hat, as you can see from the pictures. I’m so excited to be a part of Knitty!
I published a new pattern on the site today. It’s a beret in a simple lace pattern and it’s called Kensington. My sample was knit in Knit Picks Andean Silk (one of my favorite yarns) in the color Hollyberry. I love how it turned out! This pattern is for sale for $4.50 and can be purchased here. Here’s a picture:
