Projects
How to Get Ahead of the Game
Dear Kay,
The Great Isabell Knitalong is the wind beneath my wings as I motor away on Isabell Kraemer’s Bottom Line Pullover.
I’m about two inches into skein number 2. The drama!
For me, this knitalong is all about the color green. Or, more precisely, the colors of green that shift and change in Jill Draper’s Mohonk Light. This is Spinach.
The Way to Think About a Knitalong
One way to think about the Great Isabell Knitalong: we are all stunningly ON IT. We are months ahead of the game—if the game we’re playing is to be ready for Fall 2019 with a perfect, swanky, cozy new sweater.
I am rarely ahead of the game. Most of the time I don’t even know what the game is, or I figure out that the game is one where I don’t know the rules, or it’s a game where I don’t have the right shoes.
That’s the beauty of a knitalong. It’s a game where everybody can play, where the concept of winning is mostly the notion that at the end of it all, you’ve got a new handknit sweater—a sweater that you made in the company of other equally motivated knitters, where you very likely gleaned some useful tidbit of knowledge and probably shared a trick or two of your own.
We’re going to be running the Great Isabell Knitalong through the end of May—a solid chunk of time for you to jump in—with plenty lag time afterward should you want to take your sweet time to finish.
How to Get Your Knitalong Going
Pick a project. Here’s our overview of Isabell Kraemer’s designs from MDK Field Guide No. 10: Downtown.
Get the pattern. Order up MDK Field Guide No. 10: Downtown right here—either print or ebook edition. When you order the print edition, we email you a code for the ebook edition instantly so you can dive in today.
Figure out your yarn. Use whatever yarn you like—all yarns are welcome. If you’re interested in the yarn specified for the Bottom Line Pullover, here are the colors of Jill Draper’s Mohonk Light for which we still have sweater quantities available. (Thanks to everybody who’s ordered—wow.)
Stanley Plum
Midnight
Mourning Dove
BERING
Bone
CHARRED COAL
Wet Bluestone
Have a peek at the Great Isabell Knitalong conversation going on now in the MDK Lounge. There’s all sorts of crazy stuff in there: yarn choices, modifications, cardiganizations, restarts, reckonings, advice and counsel. I never fail to learn something new during our knitalongs.
And if this is the first time you’ve made a sweater, we’ll help you through. Hope you join us and get ahead of the game. Which isn’t really a game, now that I think about it. It’s even better than a game.
Love,
Ann
I absolutely love that green!!!!!
I’m right beside you with your ‘what game?” behind-ness. To be even more confusing add ‘what does that word’ mean … I just figured out what ‘deep state’ is so it must be time for a new version of another old word to surface.
Depending on where you live or where you intend to visit this summer, you might need a nice new sweater. Iceland in August had me wearing a LOT of wool with no irony whatsoever. The entirety of the Puget Sound is almost always sweater weather after 6 pm and before noon, 10 am if you’re lucky. Knit a sweater, then you have an excuse to take a trip to some mountains.
That Mohonk is truly magnificent.
Funny, I recently wrote my own blog post on this same issue – the constant battle to knit in or ahead of the season. It’s spring now, but if you blink in knitting years, it’s going to be fall. Yikes!
I am super, super late. But I got the Field Guide. I love Isabell Kraemer’s designs. I’ve never done a KAL. But I think this is going to happen. Probably won’t be done in time, but I’m ordering the yarn. I cannot resist that Bottom Line Pullover.
Welcome!! You’re going to have a great time and you’ll love having this versatile pullover. Have you checked into the Lounge yet? There’s so much inspiration and encouragement on this KAL and everything else!
Love the green and the blue
Would like the book and wool.