trust the expert...

And READ the instructions!
Got Elvis (back and sleeves) all knit and now I’m ready for the fronts. I examined all my 1X1 look swatches and kept going back to the first one that was supposed to be like I used on Granville and thought, gee, maybe that would be okay if only the main bed tension were lower to make those stitches smaller, tighter and more defined. I dug out the Granville pattern and what do you know? MAO did use a tighter tension on the main bed stitches! Ha! Made one more swatch to be sure, following directions this time and it works!
Looked at the video at Shopbop a few more times and I’m convinced the hemline of the front is sloped with shortrows after the rib hem. I’m going with 10 cm over the width of the front as well as adding 4 longstitches at the centre side – Vince probably didn’t do this but it’s what I want and even though it won’t actually show – it’s on the inside of the fold – I figure it will at least lay flat and not roll which could create a weird ridge showing on the front!
I could lie and say my first attempt was beautiful, perfectly thought out and worked a charm, but who would believe me? ha! Knitting away, I did the armhole shaping and my plan at that point was to knit up to the shoulder and then continue knitting on the remaining edge, making it long enough to take it up and around the back of the neck to finish the shawl collar. As I approached the point where there should be front neckline shaping if it was a regular neckline, it dawned on me this would be a mess. Way too much fabric for the collar!
I stopped, had dinner and pondered the situation.

revised front schematic

I figured there should be some compensation/shaping, more like a vee neck, to bring the collar portion over to the shoulder line. Is that what they meant about the open placket??? I was going to rip out about 40 rows, back to the end of the underarm shaping, just throw in the vee shaping but I decided to wait until the morning. I tossed and turned half the night and thought about cutting a prototype from fabric. By morning, I decided that I’d miscalculated the width of the shawl collar portion and the entire piece was unusable, but the hem, the shortrowed angle and the longstitch facing was all good.
I’ll rewind that piece later if I need the yarn, but with a fresh start, I quickly got to the beginning of the vee neck. Decisions, decisions! Basically, I am knitting stockinette on the double bed – the ribber is up and there are only 4 sts on the rib bed, knitting only every other row for the longstitch. This is on the side that I would be putting in hold, to come back to later after shaping the neckline with vertical decreases. If I put that part in hold, the carriage will be passing over it for another 100 rows or so and I don’t want to damage the yarn. I could draw it back to A position on ravel cord and just be real careful. A light comes on and I realize the longstitch edge from this point is no longer necessary because that edge will be stitched into the vee neckline. I can transfer those few sts up to the main bed, place the collar part all in hold (or not – I decided to take it off on waste and rehang it later) and continue on the right side of 0, abandon the ribber altogether, and finish up using the knit arm. Do I take the chance? Will there be a difference in the stitch size of that next row?