Hi! I’m new to knitting sweaters, chose an ambitious first sweater project and have come to the dreaded neckline. Can someone help me decode this paragraph of my pattern?
“Put 24 sts in the middle of front for neck on a holder. Work each side of neck separately. Cast off at neck edge every alt row 3 sts once, 2 sts once. Work 1 row. Dec 1 st at neck edge once. Work until raglan dec have been made. Cast off rem 2 sts. Rejoin yarn to sts on holder (left end) and patt to end. Complete to match first side, reversing shapings.”
I’m particularly confused about what to do with “cast off at neck edge”-is this the stitches on the holder in the middle, or is this referring to the sides? I’m already doing raglan decreases on the outer edge, so this is asking me to also bind off in the middle?
Looking at the photo of the finished project (below) it just also seems super weird to put those stitches on the holder at that point, and I almost feel I should wait until I get to the ribbed pattern closer to the neck line to do so. Any help translating this to knitting novice language/plain English is appreciated!
Here’s where I am so far on the front: just transferred those 24 stitches to a holder and worked one more row on the left side to complete the cable pattern.
I’m really second guessing the putting stitches on a holder and I think I’m going to reverse it and keep going with the regular raglan decreases until I get up into that neckline in the picture. It just seems way too early to be shaping the neck in the middle of the chest and I see no binding off in the picture until the neckline.
Welcome to KH!
From the pattern stitches it looks like you should be able to work a few rows of the rib before shaping the neck. Is your measurement from the bottom edge correct? Can you check with the schematic? Check your row gauge and see if you’re close to the correct number of rows/inch. The most critical measurement is really the raglan opening for the sleeves. If that’s too tight or to loose, the sleeves will be impossible or at least uncomfortable.
If the measurements are good and it’s just a problem of your row gauge being off from the pattern gauge, go ahead with the neck shaping. You may have to adjust the raglan decreases in order to get them all in, maybe decrease more frequently for a bit.
From this point on you’ll be working the two shoulders, one at a time. The center sts stay on hold until the collar. They aren’t involved in the cast offs. The cast off and decreases at the neck edge of the shoulder are worked at the same time as the raglan decreases.
At the neck edge, work the cast off of 3 sts once, work one row without cast off, cast off 2sts, work one row, then decrease one stitch at the neck edge.
