Fun
The Great Isabell Knitalong: The End?
You guys!
The can-do spirit lives!
The mighty knitters in the Great Isabell Knitalong took on a challenge, didn’t blink, and went for it.
Many of us decided to make the Bottom Line Pullover, Isabell Kraemer’s minimalist, light sweater that is a highlight of MDK Field Guide No. 10: Downtown.
It is a beautiful design. It is also a design calling for 95 percent stockinette stitch.
When knit in the round, stockinette stitch means you’re knitting only knit stitches—no purls. It is the most excellent thing to knit while consuming mass quantities of Netflix time, commuting time, waiting room time.
For some of us, all this stockinette meant that we anticipated that one row of eyelets at the hem with uncommon excitement. The Matterhorn! We made it!
I’m still scheduled for a trip to Sleeve Island, but I’m strong for it.
It’s a beautiful sweater, and I am reminded of MDK Rule No. 72: No project is too ambitious if you crave the result enough. I crave! I continue to crave!
Prizes
We will be sending prizes to some of the intrepid folks who had fun with this knitalong.
- Maria Podleisek.
- Jy Chao.
- Meg, who included an extremely sweet photo of her baby.
- Julie came up with a daring combo of colors.
- Kimberley.
We’ll be contacting you all for the details about your prizes. Congratulations!
The Future
We have an incredible summer ahead. A new Field Guide is due to arrive from the printer. Today! It’s Field Guide No. 11, and it’s a beauty! We will launch it next month with all the joy in the world.
I can hardly wait to begin knitting from Field Guide No. 11. Oh wait: I’ve already begun. In fact, I am in the midst of a knitting mania from this upcoming Field Guide that I have never before experienced. Truly amazing! Can’t wait for you to get as hooked on this Field Guide as I am.
The Folks Up Top
Up top are some of the knitters who KALed. Give them all a follow on Instagram!
@dawnhaddox: Indigo Bottom Line Pullover
@mpodleisek: Dark green handspun Bottom Line Pullover
@nellknits Pale blue Petula
@tinydotsfibers: Beginning Petula with pink flower
@amyjometzendorf: Spinach Bottom Line Pullover
@blackyarns: Midnight Blue Petula Pullover
@hdayananda: Vibrant green Bottom Line Pullover
@kagleslie: Dark Bottom Line Pullover
@kgdew: Coral Bottom Line Pullover
@megssnyder5: Baby plus Bottom Line Pullover
@petitestitches: Petula Pullover modeled by the designer herself, Isabell Kraemer
And from the MDK Lounge:
stushaus: Blue Stripey Yoke Petula
suzjennett: Pink Petula
joybiggart: Dark blue Bottom Line Pullover
Good on you for staying with it! I had half a heart to join in on this, however, I have a little back story. I have a sweater by one of my favorite designers, Isabell Kraemer. I first took the leap to work through her FallKAL and it was glorious. Until, I came to the finish after I blocked the sweater and wore it a time or two, I realized something was not quite right. Can you believe after working through a medium size sweater ( next time, I will try small) I secured the color work ends. Only to later discover… wait for it, somehow way back up on the short row shaping of the neck, I must have misread the markers somehow. The back of the neck was resting on my shoulder rather than neatly on the center of my back. (Sigh) deep breath….exhale… again. Whoa. During this KAL I was hoping to frog my beautiful DK Mad Tosh. It is still folded all cozy into a wonderful project bag. Will I ever have a heart to frog this beautiful treasure of hand knit stockinette? Granted, it was not knit on size US1. What holds me back? It’s only DK.
I really wanted to steel this beauty and create a cardigan. Sigh. Any thoughts? Can we bow our heads and have another moment of silence to fully grasp what misstep took place to center the back over the shoulder? Why did it take so long to discover this? I have been knitting for 30+ years. Typically, I after almost every pattern I work with, as I did a bit with Ready for Fall adding a row of the bubbles along the sleeves, as well as several layers of bubbles along the lower edge. It takes an early morning to call me to confess in such a public forum. There is a tiny voice here saying, “help!”
Suggestions welcome, gently, please?
Jane, I wonder whether you can do a little surgery to save it. You should be able to snip one stitch, above the colorwork and below the short row shaping. Then take that row out one stich at a time, until the whole collar is free. Put the live stitches back on the needle and knit the collar from the bottom up, putting the short rows where they should be. Voila! Good luck. XOXO
Yes, this is what I learned from Stephanie Pearl-McPhee in a class on fixing mistakes in knitting. Try to fix it first, but if you have to rip it out and start over, well… isn’t that what you were going to do in the first place
I concur. I would first try yoke surgery rather than ripping out the entire body of stockinette to fix.
I third this idea!!
Oh, JANE. That’s such a thing to discover. It’s amazing how stuff like wayward short rows can slide by without a word–it’s like they’re TRYING to mess with us. Half the time you can’t even tell where they’re sitting.
I wonder if you could make a sort of spectacular event of frogging the sweater. Imagine the catharsis! The relief that it’s not sitting there blinking at you anymore! It would be like the ultimate Band-Aid yanking episode.
This reminds me of the time I blithely mattress stitched an entire sleeve to the side seam of a sweater. Didn’t stop for a minute to wonder whether anything was amiss. Just kept going . . .
Thank you for this confession. I think it’s safe to say We’ve All Been There! xox
My Best! Thank you, all!
Celebrate the joys of stockinette!
Celebrate sleeves and short sleeves! It is always sweater weather in Northern MN.
The funny part is I followed this pattern so very closely… markers and all. Perhaps it’s the confession of I’m losing my marbles. Thank goodness, I find them again!
The surgery may be the first fix. After all, why not try… the deeper wonder is is this thing just too big?
I’m not at ease with so much ease.
Thank you for the space to rant.
Please, let’s return to celebrating the amazing Isabell Kraemer designs and our delicious addiction to slow fashion.
The short rows at the back neck are a relatively new-to-me refinement and since I just follow the instructions like a robot and don’t really know what I’m doing, I live in fear of this happening to me! They do make the back neck sit so nicely, but is it worth the terror? I think you will feel better once you get it unraveled and can start afresh.
Kay, that is EXACTLY my approach to a new knitting pattern — follow the directions like a robot without knowing quite what I am doing, just hoping for the best. No wonder we like each other!
Can’t really help with fixing, but I once finished a toe up short row heel sock and didn’t realize until I tried to put it on that I’d made the heel on the side of the foot rather than the back. So you are not alone, if that helps….
I did rip that sock back and reknit it, and I did NOT repeat the mistake on the other one.
Edit steel for steek. Sigh.
OMG, what an MDK fangirl moment to get a wip pic and mention of my first ever completed sweater! And it FITS! Woo Hoo! Just have to get a soak and block. It was actually so much easier and faster than I expected and I really enjoyed it.
Congratulations to ALL for even attempting an entire sweater knit with teeny tiny yarn on teeny tiny needles!!! You are my heroes;)
This KAL has given me a lot of joy and sweater confidence, due in large part to all the support and fun in The Lounge! The Bottom Line went so much faster than I thought (I bound off the body last night) and now I’m looking even more forward to all the teeny-tiny yarn sweaters in my queue. Once I finish those dang sleeves…
I love them all but that handspun just knocks my socks off!
I am pleased as punch to be selected for a prize, as if the finished sweater wasn’t prize enough as it is! Thank you MDK!
In keeping with my KAL history (see, e.g., Carbeth cardigan finished 2019), I purchased yarn to start the Bottom Line last week!
I know, I think this is the first time I have aligned with a KAL ever! After finishing the indigo Bottom Line Pullover above, I was inspired to go get last year’s Shakerag Top wip and push forward!
I know this is about 10 comments back, but in case Jane is having second thoughts, please do try surgery on that sweater. But maybe wait a few weeks when you have gained a little emotional detachment to actually re-knit it. Do the actual yarn snipping and threading of the needle through the live stitches now while motivation is still fresh, then going back might not seem so daunting.
Kay, yours looks fab as do you in it!!!
I’m still cranking out the stockinette….