Topstitching? and neckband advice plse

How-to Questions
1

Hi, a couple of questions about finishing a jumper that was knit flat.

  1. what does the pattern writer mean by using “top-stitching” to finish the seams? and

  2. When I knit the neckband I had to sew the right shoulder seams together and then pick up stitches from both sides of the neck and from the stitch holders in the centre front and centre back. It then gave an instruction for finishing sewing the right shoulder and neck seam but gave no instruction for the left. I merrily pickedc up stitches and knitted 5 rows for the neck band :? -cast-off then sewed up the seams but when I tried to put this jumper on my son I couldn’t get it over his head even though I had used a larger needle to cast-off loosley. I didn’t know how to fix it so I unravelled part of the neck seam so that it will fit over his head so I have a neckband that has a little gap next to it that isn’t knitted as high as the band but am worried that if I try to pick up stitches at the neck edge where the gap is and knit to the same height as the rest of the band that it will become too tight to pull over his head so am tempted just to leave it. He is only 4 and probably won’t worry about it but don’t want to make the same error next time I make a jumper. This is why I usually look for patterns for no neck-band: they’re scary. butocksedwincimagh

2

Did you bind off any part of the neckline before picking up stitches for the neckband? Those stitches also need to be bound off very loosly.

It may be that even with your best efforts to keep your bind off tension loose, you still may have bound off too tightly. It may also be that you really need to knit the neckband on a different size needle. I think for a better look, it’d be best to rip out the neckband, reknit it on the next larger size needle, baste the seam closed when you are done and before binding off, move all stitches to a scrap piece of yarn and try on over his head. If it fits that way, then you know that you simply need to make your bind off loose enough. If it doesn’t fit then the neck hole really isn’t large enough, and you may need to rip back a little bit of the body to fix that up.