Fantastic opportunity to test knit yet another of Isabell Kraemer’s delightful knits. I loved the idea of the stripes but wanted to adapt them slightly - mostly because of yarn availability. I loved the combination of these yarns, but had the issue of two skeins of the speckled grey against one skein each of the light and dark grey, and I wanted to balance them out without running out of any of the colours, so the speckled grey became my main colour. I also find it easier to knit thinner stripes because of the motivational pull of completing them easily. I chose to knit 12 row stripes throughout, including the ribbing on the sleeves and bottom hem, which I finished off with 3 rows of the golden yarn - a perfectly matching contrast.

No issue to match gauge with this project, I’ve used these yarns before on the same needles and met with the same gauge.

No problems with the pattern at all which was super easy to follow, and I loved the shoulder and sleeve construction - so neat and flattering!

Initially my progress on this was very slow as I injured my thumb and couldn’t knit for a couple of weeks, but once my thumb healed it was a quick knit, so easy to get drawn into “just one more stripe” mode! Picking up stitches on the neckline ran smoothly and I especially love how neatly the v neck sits - very flattering too, being deep but not too deep. I picked up the stitches at a ratio of 3 for every 4 rows, however towards the point of the v neck I picked up every stitch as I didn’t want the V neck to pucker up. It worked a treat.

I knitted slightly longer sleeves, to match the 12 row stripes, but apart from that, no further modifications. None were needed as the pattern worked out brilliantly, a perfect fit I also went for the option of adding waist shaping increases towards the bottom of the body. Wish I was a tiny bit skinnier (!) so as to not need these but they did allow for a very comfortable fit.

Can’t wait to get started on a second version, this time perhaps with long sleeves and a slightly heavier yarn for winter.