Butterfly Garden ready

Just before my summer holidays the testing was done. So Butterfly Garden is up for sale.

Butterfly Garden combines stranded and lace knitting, inspired by the beautiful work of Kieran Foley.

There are ‘big’ lace butterflies in the edge pattern, stranded butterflies in the middle section and little lace butterflies in the body of the shawl.

And again I went to the beautiful colors of Wollmeise. I really love their brightness.

For this shawl I used Wasabi as main color, Sonne for the stranded butterflies and Amenthyst medium for the stranded background.

What's on the needles?

It's weekend, so it's knitting time. So, what is on the needles? I have my long term project 'Peace', a replica from a Dale of Norway sweater. The Dale sweater looks like this:

My version is in malabrigo lace, on 2.25mm needles and looks like this:

I stil have a long way to go. Maybe next winter?

Then there is the 'Tiling Fish' blanket.

Also stil a long way to go.

But my go to knitting at the moment is a shawl for my little girl in lace yarn she helped dyeing. No picture jet, maybe next week, now I have to get knitting.

Butterfly Garden ready for testing

Right now I'm getting my new pattern testknitted on Ravelry.

If you are on Ravelry and want to test it too, there are some places left:
http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/free-pattern-testers/2214454

Gracieuse

I see I have not blogged about my first pattern yet.

Gracieuse:

The idea for Gracieuse was born when I saw a very nice stitch pattern in an old Dutch ladies magazine that was put online. Originally it was to be used for the cuff of socks. I very much doubt if it would keep your socks at the right place, but I liked it for a shawl. And so the idea for a shawl was born, to be named after the magazine I found the stitch pattern in: Gracieuse.

I choose some Wollmeise from my stash. For the beautiful color, but also for the nice stitch definition.
I wanted the border to get the full attention, so I just did a simple body, stockinette shaped with short rows.
All in all it is a nice small shawl, suitable for every season.

Sneak peek

I'm working on a new pattern.
A shawl again, this time combining lace knitting with stranded color work.
The pattern is almost ready for testing, so no links yet.

Just a little peek ............

First Dutch Dunes Design blog post

First post in a brand new blog. How exciting.

I started this blog to post about all the beautifull patterns I want to design. To give information, support and sneak peeks. My first pattern is already on the pattern page and I hope that many will follow and will be enjoyed by many knitters.

But first some introductions.

What is Dutch Dunes Design?

Dutch Dunes Design is the label I use for my designs. Dutch, because I live in the Netherlands and Dunes because we live near the coast.
I've been knitting for many years now and designing for the last few years. It started with my kids wanting sweaters with their favorite characters. Nowadays when I see a nice skein of yarn and look for a good pattern I always want things differenty. Sometimes so much different that I have to make it up myself.

In 2010 I joined a group on Ravelry named 'Project Yarnway' where we would every month get a new assignment to design and knit. Although I did not finish every month in time I did enjoy the process very much. I even won one month, with a scarf designed for my son on the 'back to school' assignment.

Since then I saved all my notes on the things I made up and knitted, to create patterns from them sometime. But it took me taking the 'Designer 101' course on 'Knitgrrl [virtual] studio' to take the step to actually write that first pattern. That was lesson one. Lesson 4 was about blogging and the blog your reading now is the follow up of my homework. I hope I can fill it with interesting things about my patterns and knitting in general.