Neck Band - Knit Bound Off Stitches

How-to Questions
1

I have a pattern for a sweater and I am about to knit the neckband and button band. I have never picked up and knitted bound off stitches before, but I am sure I can handle that once I watch a video. My question is about the number of stitches that it is telling me to pick up and knit. This is what the instructions say:

“pick up and k6 bound off sts from right front neck edge, 7 bound off sts from side neck edge, 10 sts up side neck edge, 16 sts across sleeve, 34 sts across back, 16 sts across sleeve, 10 sts from side neck, 7 bound off sts from side neck bind off, 6 bound off stitches from left front neck edge-112 sts.”

I have more than this many stitches that span the area in which the neck band should be. I haven’t counted them all, but I would estimate about 200. What does this mean to do, skip some? Is there a general rule about this which would help me to know which stitches to pick?

Thanks and God bless :slight_smile:

2

In order to shape the neckline of the sweater, you’ll need to pick up fewer stitches than you actually have available. This will keep the neckline from rippling. I often count how many sts are available in a section and divide by the number of sts to be picked up. That gives me an idea of about how many sts to skip between picked up sts so that the picked up sts are ~evenly spaced. But you don’t have to follow these numbers exactly. A few sts more or less, as long as you can keep to the ribbing pattern, aren’t going to matter. There’s a very good video for picking up sts at the top of this page under Free Videos, Tips, Picking up stitches.