It’s been a week now since I cut the steek in my Autumn Rose. . . are you wondering how the neckband is coming along?

Well . . . here it is.

Um, yes, I do know that it looks like two tiny balls of yarn.

Yes, I am aware that two balls of yarn are not, in fact, the same thing as a neckband.

The thing is that they were a neckband until Friday night when they reverted . . . with a little help from me.

See, here’s the thing. You know how I mentioned last week that the neckline was rather large, but that I was hoping the neckband would be able to rein things in? Yeah, well, not nearly enough or in anything remotely like an attractive way. The poor sweater looked just . . . weird. It had an odd, pouchy, gatherered-looking pucker at the sides of the neck and the tops of the sleeves just looked STRANGE.

As in, even after I’d removed the odd neckband and it was back to looking the way it did on Sunday after cutting the steek . . . when I showed the sweater to the group of knitters at the spinning party yesterday, the poor thing was met with a resounding, shocked silence. (Really, it wasn’t pretty. The poor sweater sobbed all night long.)

Obviously, I can’t leave things like that.

So, here’s what I’m doing. Since for reasons beyond comprehension, my gauge changed as I worked my way up the sweater, it’s too big. However, along where the raglan “seam” would be, there’s a faux-seam stitch purled on every row. I had considered ignoring that and just knitting every stitch, but am now very glad I didn’t.

Because I’m going to turn the faux-seam into a real one. I’m going to stitch about an inch’s seam allowance along each line of purl stitches (which make a very nice fold-line), thus taking in the extra fabric and getting the size back to at least the correct ballpark . . . or in the same state, at least.

In this picture, you can see the line of little safety pin/stitch markers that I marked my new seam with. I pinned each of the four seams, tried the sweater on (inside out), made a few more adjustments, re-pinned, and then sewed a line of running-stitch basting along each seam. Already, things look much, much better.

Tonight, I’ll pick up the neckband stitches and then try this on again and see how it looks. If all is well, I’ll knit the neckband and then go back and re-sew my seams with a firmer stitch, like a back-stitch. If it still looks strange, I’ll readust my new, real seams accordingly. But when it’s done and the seams are back-stitched, at that point, I’ll decide what I want to do with the seam allowances on the inside. If they seem too bulky, I’ll run a line of machine-stitching along the hand-stitching and then trim the seams. I’m hoping that won’t be necessary, though. Because, one, I don’t want to have to dig out my sewing machine again, and two, I have a feeling that all those loose ends would make the sweater itchier to wear than the smooth lines of knitting.

I won’t be able to judge that for a while, though. While the rash on my shoulder is (thankfully) starting to heal, the skin there is pretty sensitive–I’m being very, very careful what kind of sweaters I’m wearing on top of my t-shirts. Just trying on the Shetland wool sweater earlier was, um, uncomfortably itchy on my right shoulder. I’m not going to be able to make an impartial decision on this subject until my skin is completely back to normal (grin).

• Tags: Knitting/Spinning • Permalink:Necking // 8 Comments »