First Sweater! Shaping Neck help.

How-to Questions
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1

Hello!
I’m knitting up my first pullover sweater, which is a Hogwarts Quidditch Sweater. I made it through the armhole part; it was really going okay until I reached the neck shaping. Here’s what the pattern says:

“Work first 44 sts; work next 12 sts and place on holder for neck; work rem 44 sts.”
No problem.

"Working each side separately, cast off 4 sts at neck edge on next 2 rows. Cast off 2 sts at neck edge on following 2 rows. "

  • So I googled working each side separately and put one side on a second stitch holder. I think somewhere in this step and the next one is where I went wonky. On one side, I knitted toward the neck edge to get that side at the beginning, cast off the four stitches and finished the row, knit my way back to the neck edge, and repeated. Am I supposed to cast off at the end of a row too? I thought you could only cast off at the beginning. Are they referring to the other side as a second row? I’m confused!

“Dec 1 st on neck edge every other row 7 times. Work even until 26 1/2” (67.3 cm) from the beg.”

  • I honestly have no idea if I did this part wrong too. Am I interpreting this correctly, in that it means basically a deduction of 7 stitches over 14 rows?

After the armhole shaping, you are supposed to cast off 11 stitches at the armhole edge 4 times and then cast off the remaining 9 stitches. I don’t have enough stitches left. I cast off 11 and finished the row, knit my way back, and then only had 16 stitches left.

Somehow I’ve gone very wrong here. Please help! One can only frog so much before it gets disheartening.

2

Welcome and congratulations on working your first sweater!
You’re on the right track. You can either work both shoulders at the same time with two strands of yarn (this is what the pattern is assuming) or put one on a holder as you have and go back to it once the first shoulder is complete.

If you work the shoulders one at a time, cast off 4sts once, work across the row and back, cast off 2sts, all at the neck edge (total of 6sts cast off). You can really only cast off at the beginning of a row.

Yes, decrease one stitch every other row at the neck edge 7 times . Usually this is easiest to do ever right side (RS) row. It will take a total of 14 rows to complete. Now there are 13sts total cast off (6+7).

For the shoulder shaping, cast off 11sts 2 times and 9sts once at the armhole edge. That’ll be a total of 31sts or all the remaining sts.

3

Aha!!! You saved my sweater!

Thank you so much!