Picking up necklines is a topic that comes up fairly regularly with test knitters and during pattern support. A lot of sweater patterns direct knitters to come back to the neckline at the end of the project. In my designs, the main reason for this practice is to stabilize and strengthen a neckline.
As with all things knitting, the answer is that there is no single right way to do it. Different knitters have different favorite ways to handle necklines. I have a favorite process and I almost always do necklines the same way. I’ve shared my thoughts with knitters and testers over the years. But pictures really are worth a thousand words! So, for this blog post I took a little extra time to knit the same neckline twice on a recently finished sample sweater and snap some photos along the way.
In the first picture here, you can see the finished neckline (or almost finished since I still need to sew in that last end). In the second picture, you see the neckline that I ripped out. This is really great side-by-side look at what I’ve been telling knitters for years! I normally pick up from the inside edge of each original neck cast-on stitch along the back of the neck, the sleeves and the center front (picking up down the left front side and up the right front side varies from pattern to pattern and I’m not going into those variations in this post). I’ve done it both ways over the years and found they work a little bit differently for me. Picking up from the outer loop of the cast-on neck stitches makes the pick-up round nearly invisible and that is nice (shown in the second photo above). But it also causes the neck to flip out a bit. Picking up from the inner loop of the cast-on neck stitches bends the stitches just slightly in towards the neck and that feels/looks nicer to me (shown in the first photo above). It does leave a visible pick-up round that I’ve found does not bother me at all.
Here’s a closer look at what I mean. These two photos are of the “wrong” neckline with the stitches picked up from the outer loop. You can see here the needle scooping up the outside edge of each neck stitch. With the needle still in the stitches in the first shot here, it isn’t obvious how the neck will want to behave. After removing the needle for the second shot, you can see the stitches start to flip outwards. The degree to which this will happen depends on stitch gauge, knitting tension and the yarn used.
But as you can see here, it can be pretty dramatic. In the first photo, I’ve got the neck ribbing behaving almost perfectly. It only took a tiny bit of inattention for the stitches to flip out in the second photo. That’s because the outer loop of the original cast-on neck stitch is pulling the entire ribbing out with it. This particular yarn and my fairly loose knitting gauge do make it more pronounced than you might find on other projects.
In contrast, these two photos are of the “right” neckline. Or the neckline that I prefer for most projects. In the first photo here, you can see the needle scooping up the inside edge of each neck stitch. And even without removing the needle for the second photo, you can see the stitches pulling the extra weight of the needle slightly inwards.
Here’s a closer look at the “right” neckline in progress where I’ve picked up the inner loop of each cast-on neck stitch and the visible pick-up round at the base of the ribbing. I actually think this pick-up round can be a nice design feature when it is snug and uniform. But more importantly, this neckline bends the stitches just slightly in towards the neck.
Seen here again is the finished neckline with the stitches picked up from the inner loop of each cast-on neck stitch.
This was a great project to show a pretty extreme difference so I’m thrilled to be able to share it here. I hope sharing a look at my processes and results for both options can help knitters decide which way they like best. Please do keep in mind that the results can be close enough that it is hard to tell them apart. In fact, that is one of the great things about knitting – we don’t all have to follow exactly the same path to get to the same place in the end.
