the sweater saga part two - clarity

Schrouderknits, aka Joan, is an amazing wealth of information, an incredibly patient instructor, and an overall beautiful human being.

ME:
Aha! Everything just clicked! Schrouderknits’ instructions coupled with Wusel’s link have given me a “Eureka!” moment. I think I am ready to begin my adventure.

But just so I’m clear: if I follow Schrouderknits' instructions, I would not have to knit short rows but I would have to pick up stitches to create the turtleneck afterward, correct? And if I wanted to start with the turtleneck, then I’d have to work short rows before I work the raglan?

SCHROUDERKNITS:

Correct, if you shape for a crew neck, you won’t need to do short-row shaping.

Yes, you could knit the collar first and then do the short-rowing to simulate the same crew neck cut-out. The first problem would be to decide just how many sts you want for your T-neck. Then you’d have to apportion them out to the various segments, perhaps 40-10-40-10%, ie 40% each for front and back, 10% for sleeves, then take 1 off each segment to denote it as the seam st.

Then you’d start by working back and forth all but the 40% that is the front. Add 1 more st at the end of every row until you’ve done enough rows to = ~3” more on the back, and then work all the way around.

I much prefer to do any neck treatments at the end most of the time (the lone hold-out is if the patterning won’t blend well at the going down/going up junction) because I can tweak so many things:

 EG what if your CO at beginning of T-neck is too tight to get over your head? If my BO is too tight, I just have to rip it back and go again more loosely.  EG what if I’m running low on yarn? With T-neck done last I can make it an inch shorter.  EG what if I realize I don’t really want a T-neck after all - just too hot. I can rip it back down to a regular crew neck border.