janestarz | Bodemloos -- revisited

Theoretically, you can undo a kitchener stitch at the end of a tubular bind-off. I was doing quite well for 20 stitches or so and then I lost track, pulled the wrong thread and pulled everything so tight I couldn't find the right thread anymore. It was time for drastic measures:

I cut off the entire last four rows, where the knits and the purls are separated in preparation for the kitchener stitch. Then I frogged the entire cowl (no need to waste all that beautiful yet itchy yarn!) and picked up the stitches of the neckline. Because it's a top-down piece and I started from a provisional cast-on, there was little danger of droping stitches all the way to the hem, but it did need a bit of a deft hand. I'm not sure if you can drop stitches from the bottom up, but I wasn't willing to find out!

After carefully unpicking the yarn tail from where the end was woven in, I managed to separate all the yarn I'd used for the cowl from the main body of the sweater. No false starts with bits of the cowl still there -- as the cowl increases a few stitches around the neckline, this was important. I had to start from a blank slate with exactly the same number of stitches as I started knitting the neckline of the pull-over with.

I started over at least three times, finally settling on a purl row and then a 2x2 rib pattern. I was using a 4 mm needle, nice and small so there's no decreases necessary. The 2x2 pulls toghether nicely and your bind-off keeps it snug. It's still wide enough to go over my head and it's almost exactly the round neckline of my staple Hema longsleeve. No more itchies!

This was taken on Sunday, when I was very warm, right before taking it off and choosing a cooler garment instead. I can also wear it with a blouse if I want. Let's hope it's not too warm for our mild Dutch winters!