The Knitting Fiend

Here’s how I knit my polo neck on “My Husband’s Sweater”. It’s very simple, and you can add one to any crew neck sweater pattern.

Here’s what you do:

1. Decided how wide you want your placket to be, then calculate the number of stitches for the placket.

   Example: Let’s assume you wanted a 1″ wide placket and had 5.5 stitches per inch. That’s 5.5 stitches. Obviously, you need to round. But should you round to 5 or 6?

   Well, you want to center this placket. Remember my blog about centering motifs? I discussed the idea of “even vs odd”motifs? Well, if the number of stitches across the neck are odd, you need an odd number of stitches in the placket. If the number of stitches in the neck are even, you need an even number of stitches in the placket.

   I had an odd number of stitches across my neck, so I would round to 5. Pretty simple.

2. Pick a placket depth, and figure out where to divide for the neck.

   Say you want a 3″ deep placket. Suppose the front neck bind off begins at 20″ from the cast on. Then, you’ll split of the placket when the sweater measures 17″ from the cast on; that’s because 17″ = 20″ – 3″.

3. When your sweater reaches the placket depth, split for the placket.

   Here’s how. Look at the front piece. Locate the center stitches, mark the placket stitches. In my case, I marked the 5 center stitches with yellow yarn. These stitches will be the front of the placket. Double check to make sure the same number of stitches lie to the right and left of the 5 placket stitches.

   Put all stitches to the right of the mark on the right needle; now add the 5 placket stitches to the right needle. Put all stitches to the left on the left needle. Now, cast on 5 stitches on the left needle. This will make a placket with the right side over the left side when the sweater is viewed from the front.

4. Continue knitting the front as specified in your pattern, but knit the placket stitches in some non-curling stitch. I used garter stitch.

   If you are knitting back and forth, start to knit each side separately.

   When I knit my husband’s sweater, I had been knitting in the round until I split for the placket. After splitting for the placket, I knit the five placket stitches in garter stitch, switched to broken rib, knit around until I got to the 5 placket stitches and changed to garter stitch. Then, I turned the work, and began knitting rows. I kept knitting until I reach the point where I would have placed a crew neck. I bound off the placket stitches, plus any extra stitches needed to make the flat portion of the crew neck. Then I shaped the rest of the neck just like a crew neck.

5. Knit a collar.

   Starting at one edge of the placket, pick up stitches all the way around the neck including the placket. After picking up stitches, knit in a non-curling stitch pattern until the collar is a long as you like it to be. Then bind off, and weave in ends. I knit 1 x 1 rib for about 5 1/2″.

   If you prefer a notched placket, you would start picking up stitches at the join between the placket and the sweater body. In my case, this would be 5 stitches in from the edge.

6. When you finish, tack the placket stitches you cast on to the back of the placket.
7. Oh, I forgot to mention this. If you feel like it, you can add buttonholes as you knit the placket. But you knew that, right?

That’s it. Pretty easy. Even easier if the pattern describes a polo neck in the first place!