Neck Shaping

#1

I am working on my first sweater, it is the Baby Poonam Sweater. I have finished the back and the majority of the front but am now at the neck, I have never done a neck before. The first row of the neck was done on the RS and had me work my first 30 sts as usual, add a second ball of yarn and bind off 20 sts, then work the last 30 sts as usual. That’s fine, I did that. What I’m not sure of is the next few rows. The directions are as follows:

[B]Working both sides at once, bind off 3 sts at each neck edge once, 2 sts once, and then dec one st at each neck edge every right side row once-24 sts each side. End on RS when left (button side) armhole measures 4 1/4" and end on RS of right shoulder when armhole measures 5".[/B]

So am I binding off the 3 sts on the wrong side (the next row) or do I do the WS without any bind offs and then bind of 3 sts on the next RS? When I do this I am working the row normally until the last 3 sts before the bound off sts and then binding those 3 sts off right? Then I’ll bind off the first 3 sts after the bound off sts and do the rest of the row normally?

#2

This is such a good looking pattern. I’ve had it in my queue for far too long.

You can really only bind off at the beginning of a row. Work the WS row up to the bound off sts, drop the second working strand, pick up the first and bind off on the neck edge and finish out the WS row. On the RS, work the shoulder across to the bound off sts, drop strand one, pick up strand two and bind off 3 sts then finish out the RS row. Continue like this for the other bind offs.

The bind off rows will be offset one row but that won’t be detectable.

#3

Aaaaaahhhhh that makes sense, thank you!

Are the decreases (not bind off) done like this as well or can those be done on each side of the bound off sts in the same row? (as you can see I am not that experienced).

#4

Good question. The decreases can be done on the same RS row. Since you’d use k2tog or ssk instead of bind offs there’s no problem with that.