I have read all the comments about the shawl collar, of course after I bought the yarn, and am forwarned. I may be crazy , but I looooove shawl collars.

I love the way stockinette looks but loathe knitting endless seas of stockinette, that said, I was seduced by the shawl collar. I am pleasantly surprised at how quickly the stockinette progresses at this gauge, nearly painlessly!

The largest size will be too small so I am increasing one size (I hope) by adding 1 increment (# of stitches between the written sizes) to all # of stitches and 1” before starting the armholes and 1” during the armholes. I only increased the sleeves to 66 st and I played it safe and only cast on 220 for the collar. My gauge is a little looser than written 12 x 15.5.

7/8 I am working on the sleeves, and since I lengthened the armholes I am going to have to make sure that the sleeve caps will fit. I figured I’d block the fronts and back and then seam them so I can measure them and do the math before I get to the sleeve caps. It’s sunny so I hope they are dry before i get that far. I found this nifty armscye calculator to double check!

http://frenchroastdesign.com/armscye/

The sleeves fit “like butter.”

Now for the suspenseful part - the dreaded collar. The collar uses about 20% of the total yarn! I stayed up knitting until 2:30 am because I couldn’t go to sleep without knowing if the collar was going to work.

and…..

This collar is luscious and drapey and wonderful!

The collar works and I see what the problem has been.
If you try to seam the collar to the neck edge the way you would for 2 pieces of stockinette the collar will be WAY to long….because…you are seaming a piece of stockinette to a piece of RIBBING!

Here’s how:

Block all pieces EXCEPT COLLAR. Never block ribbing.
Only seam the shoulders and sleeve caps before seaming the collar. (It is much easier to seam the collar while the body is flat).

Use safety pin type stitch markers to pin bound off edge of collar to back neck edge as follows. On a flat surface crunch ribbing together so only the knit stitches really show (the purl stitches are hidden) and pin the last part of the collar you bound off to the back neck edge. Pin the ends to the front edges at the ribbing Ribbing scrunches up very nicely so line up the edges of the front and the collar evenly and pin the centers and then pin about every 4 inches. (I seamed the collar with the seam facing inwards and it doesn’t show when it’s worn, but I think that I would seam it on the outside if I made it again.)

Use mattress stitch and sew ONLY THE KNIT STITCHES of the collar to ALL the stitches of the neck edges.

Based my lengthening the body 2” and my larger gauge I calculated that I should cast on 236, Based on the comments about collar problems I decided to be conservative and only cast on 220 for the collar instead of 236. I love it and it’s fine that way, but I could easily have eased in the additional 16 stitches. (Next time perhaps)

It’s so snuggly and warm I almost want summer to end so I can wear it!

I used 1 1/8” coconut shell buttons and set the top button hole a little higher, since I made the whole sweater 2” longer