In which the knitting is completed
I gave up on deciding how long the jumper should be and just started knitting the ribbing. I finished the ribbing. I finished the sewing in of the ends.
Gary commented on how he liked the look of the rolled neck. I do too, but not on this jumper. This one is traditional, dontcha know.
So it was time to pick up the stitches. I found a good video on YT for picking up stitches around the neck. I used an IC crochet hook for this so they could go right on the cord without any fiddling. A few goes were necessary for the sloped area at the front neck, so it took several hours and many solitaire stress breaks.
It didn’t seem enough stitches on the slopes and there were puckers on each side, but I ignored all this and forged ahead, safe in the advice that “you can always rip it out and do it over.” (In my heart of hearts I knew I was never ripping out a single stitch ever, cause I’m over it.) Fortunately it turned out fine. I think the puckers were the normal ones from the transition between stockinette and ribbing.
I did get off in the ribbing in one spot and have to drop two stitches to ladder back up properly, but that was no drama.
I used a crochet hook for all the binding off. It works really well for me and all my edges are neat and stretchy.
I wore the sweater for quite some time and it is very comfortable and warm. Actually it was hot and I finally had to take it off.
Now for the washing and blocking.