The Knitting Fiend

When knitting a circular yoke sweater top down, it’s easiest to just cast on the neck band and knit it right away. In principle, you can chose any stitch you like for a neck. Still, ribbing is the most popular, fool proof choice. Ribbing stretchy, permitting it to pass over your head, yet draws in so it conforms to the wearer’s neck. It doesn’t curl and almost everyone already knows how to work it. Garter stitch also works and doesn’t curl– but sometimes a knitter needs to fiddle a bit to make sure the neck fits over the head and also conforms to the neck. Sometimes curling neck-bands come in fashion: if you want a curling neckband, knit it in stockinette.

In nearly all cases, you’ll want to use smaller needles to knit a neckband than for the rest of the sweater. Why? Well, for one thing, most ribbing looks better knit on smaller needles. For another, the neck trim gets a fair amount of wear and slightly tighter knitting tends to wear better than looser knitting.

I chose 1 x 1 ribbing for my neckband. To determine the number of stitches to cast on, I:

• Measured my head circumference which is 21″ . To obtain the “head opening” size, I multiplied by 0.9; that is 21 * 0.9 = 18.9″.
• I determined my stitch gauge in stockinette (yes– even though the neck is in ribbing.) That was 3.25 st/inch. I multiplied the head opening size by my stitch gauge to obtain the number of stitches, then rounded to 4. So, I got 18.9″ * 3.25 = 60 stitches.

used my stitch gauge in stockinette.

I then cast on loosely using my favorite cast on for neck, joined without twisting and and knit a 1 1/4″ long tube. There it is!

Ok, so I bet knitters reading this have at least three questions:

1. What’s that white stuff?
2. Why multiply by your head size by 0.9 to get the neck opening size.
3. Why use the stockinette gauge to figure the neck trim?
4. Why round to 4?

Ok. Answers:

• So what’s the white stuff? My favorite cast on for 1 x 1 ribbing is, using needles two sizes smaller than the needles I plan to use for the ribbing, cast on using waste yarn that is thinner than the sweater yarn, then I knit one row. Then, with the knit side facing, — being careful not to twist, I join to begin knitting circular. I sometimes tie edges of this waste yarn together, then sometimes I knit a round with waste yarn in stockinette.

  Then, still using the small needles, I attach the sweater yarn and knit 1 round of 1 x 1 ribbing.

  Next, I switch to my ribbing needles, which are two sizes smaller than I use for the sweater, and knit the neck band. When I finish the neck band, I snip the waste yarn and pull it out.

  This sounds scary, but it’s a great cast on for 1 x 1 ribbing. It is very elastic. It works when knitting circular or back and forth. (It won’t work for 2 x 2 ribbing or stockinette. Trust me.)

  Ok, so the white stuff is waste yarn I removed after knitting the neck trim.

• Why multiply by your head size by 0.9 to get the neck opening? Well, when you knit a pullover, you need to get the thing over your head. Chances are, if you use your neck circumference, the pullover isn’t going to pass over your head! Based on experience, I find the smallest I can make a pullover is my head circumference multiplied by 0.8. Even that is risky. So, I use 0.9.

  If you want to risk ripping out the neck band, you can use a smaller number!

• Why use the stockinette gauge to figure the neck trim? After all, the neck is knit in ribbing! When the neck is ribbed, it tends to draw in compared to stockinette. However, it will almost always stretch to the stockinette gauge. That’s one of the reasons ribbing is a nearly fool proof neck trim. If you calculate the number of stitches based on stockinette, when you change to stockinette after knitting the ribbing, the neck will fit fine!
• Why round to 4? After all, 1 x 1 ribbing has a multiple of 2. Yep. I could round to 2. It would make sense. However, I’m writing a calculator, and I want people to be able to choose 1 x 1 or 2 x 2 ribbing! So, I round to two.

  Notice I’ve already made a bunch of approximations. I multiplied by 0.9. I could have picked 0.87 or something, right? A also used a stockinette gauge. I did so many approximations, rounding to 4 is no less precise than rounding to two.

Ok. So I knit the neck band. Then, I did what everyone should do when knitting a sweater from the top down: I tried it on. It fit. Yay!

What would I do if it didn’t fit? RIP!!! This is a small bit of knitting and there is no point in proceeding if you the neck doesn’t fit.

In my next post about this sweater, I’ll describe the one truly “fancy-schmancy” step involved in shaping this sweater: raising the back neck. Raising the neck optional and is skipped by many pattern writers. I’ll program a toggle in the calculator for people who think the shortest simplest directions with zero complications are absolutely, positively always better.

Still, even though I’ll program a toggle, I usually disapprove of sweaters knit without raised back necks because I think the simplification results in a poor or uncomfortable fit. Though there are some exceptional circumstances, I rarely knit a sweater without raising the neck so it’s higher in the back than front. To those who think I’m being overly fiddly I say: go look at your store bought sweaters and lay it flat on a table. Isn’t the back neck higher than the front neck? If you don’t think so, put the sweater on backwards. Notice the neck rides up? A bit uncomfortable, ehh?

Anyway, that’s why I do a fiddly thing to raise the back neck, which I’ll explain. It involves, erhmm… short rows!