button band

Hi, I’m a new knitter and knitting a baby jacket. This may sound like a stupid question but the pattern says button band - begin at cast off edge of neck…pick up and knit…to beginning of armhole shaping and 32 to cast on edge…, can anyone tell me which direction I should be going in as I thought the cast on edge was at the bottom?

Welcome to the forum and to knitting!
A baby jacket is such a good entry into sweater knitting, many of the basic techniques and in a small size.
What is the name of your pattern?
The directions want you to begin picking up starting at the neck and continue down to the bottom edge of the sweater. Sounds like it’s been knit bottom up so that the cast on edge was at the bottom as you thought and the neck edge toward the top. There’s often a cast off at the neck to widen the center opening.
Pick up with the needle in your right hand as in this video and work down to the bottom edge. It may help to place markers to divide the area into sections in order to keep approximately on track with the pick up.

We love questions here so don’t hesitate to ask.

thank you for replying, I am an idiot! somehow I was getting confused between the button band and the neck band! I 've done the button band, not the prettiest outcome, pulled it out and second try better. I expect I’ll have more brain malfunctions as I progress…! thanks again for the support

Don’t we all have those moments? I hope so. I’m convinced that part of the process of knitting a button band is working it once, then ripping out and redoing it.
Come back with any questions, no problem.

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I’ve got the bumper sticker. Is this an immutable universal unwritten (until now) law of knitting?