back to the drawing board...

That’s bound to happen once in a while! Good thing I never wanted to become an engineer – obviously my mind’s eye is rather shortsighted! Ha! that tubular band that I so enjoyed knitting – 2 pieces of 1000 rows each – wasted! and darny darn! those buttonholes were in exactly the right place! But at least my collar works!
Next idea – obviously a vertically knit band does not work here because I need to encase the edge where the collar folds back, otherwise the seaming is ugly. This means a horizontal band. To make it long/wide enough (100cm/39.5 in) it either needs to be done in 2 pieces or do it in a full needle rib and attach it by hand but that is still iffy, and I never do that. A stockinette band would match the bottom hem – the width of the back hem is 65 cm, but the tubular knit is very difficult to make a horizontal buttonhole in – I remember trying it on the past and making myself a sticky note to remind myself this does not work – I have a short memory for bad stuff, what can I say? I have a drawer of awful hair products that I’ve tried, and they don’t work and if I just throw them out, I’ll end up buying them again but at least if I keep them it reminds me they didn’t work – we all have flaws – that’s how I deal with mine! ;-)
Back to the band, the width of the bottom band tells me I can get a stockinette band that is long enough to go from the hem to the neckline join and then another shorter piece (30 cm) for the edge of the collar – this seems the best bet and having the join in the band at the same place as the seam between the neckline and the collar makes the most sense.
I looked through the last few issues of KNITWORDS to see if I had used a band like what I want here and yes! No 52, Purple Purls (it’s always so much nicer when someone else has done all the work for you!) had a graded tension stockinette band that encased the edge – I use stockinette bands many times but they are mostly hemmed and attached to the front but I want the band to cover up the edge stitch so there is no seam/chain line. My new band is made (10 rows, beginning at T9 and grading one dot tighter per row to T6, a loose row of T10 for the fold, and then grade back up from T6 to T9 at RC021) and then an RTR (remove, turn, rehang – which gives a nice, little detail in the finishing, looks like a garter stitch ridge between the band and the garment selvedge) and then removed on the garter bar. The selvedge edge of the front is hung (right side facing here), the band is turned and rehung, pulling the open stitches of the band through the garment edge. Now the hem is hung, and a loose row knit manually to join and chain off. Looks fabulous from inside and out! OMG! Why did I not do this in the first place?

design notes...

 If you were at listening to me at a seminar, you may have heard me talking about shortrowing at the hemline to add a curve to the bottom to compensate for the Aline – basically A-line shaping means decreasing evenly spaced up the side seam from the hem to the underarm, which creates an angle and makes a longer line than what you will have at the centre front/back of the garment. To avoid that pulled-up or shorter look, I usually add extra rows in the centre of the Back and Fronts, depending on the overall length and width of the garment. On Pocket Change and Ozark, it was 8 rows beginning right after the first row of main colour on the main bed, after the hem. Doing it on Ozark was the first time I did this on a striped garment. Only after the cardigan was totally finished, I was wearing it and admiring myself in my full-length mirror, did I realize that because of the stripes, this was noticeable – to me anyway – not likely anyone else. To avoid that in this striped version, I spread the shortrows out in several stripes. Instead of making 8 shortrows one after another, I did 2 rows in the charcoal, holding 30 sts at centre, twice, then on the silver stripe, I held 40 sts twice, with 50 sts in the next large silver stripe and ending up with 60 sts in the red stripe. Hope this makes sense!
Balancing the colours – my plan was to have red all around the edges, with the bands. I kept the hemline the same Back and Front and the top is all charcoal. I thought this would keep it from looking too wild.
The patch pocket – the one in Ozark works well, no sagging or bagging - I made this one slightly larger and revised that method from March 28. I realized I over-complicated things for the final cast-off and the top of the pocket is finished with an easier, double stranded loose row that is just chained off – I edited that post to reflect the change.
Had to re-engineer the collar slightly and compensate for less width at the centre front – Ozark had an overlap and the longstitch facings, so this collar is not as wide overall and the angle from the neck to the shoulder had to be changed.
Using button/buttonhole band from Geezer Chic, KW #50 – I made a swatch of the tubular band, using 6-0-6 ns, a little narrower because of the larger gauge with this yarn. I got a row gauge (after washing and drying!) of 80 rows to 10 cm. How to figure out buttonhole placement? I was chuckling as I did this – at the Spring Fling seminar some one brought up the question of how many buttons should be on a garment and someone else said they had heard that an uneven number was the ‘rule’. Well, I had never heard that, and it was quite funny because as I put each garment on during my presentation, they could see there is apparently no rhyme or rule to the MAO method of buttoning a garment. My only rule is, because I have a large bust, the most important button for me is at the bust point and I work from there. The bust point is usually at the same spot as the beginning of the underarm shaping – convenient but, I’m talking about my patterns, remember. I like my armholes high, whether it has a sleeve or not. So especially for a vertically made band, this is easy to figure – I look at my schematic and take the side seam measurement, add in the hem (and any shortrows) and that is my starting position (58 cm). Then, based on the width of the band and the size of the button (I will usually have purchased buttons by now, taking my swatch to the store - the number of buttons on a card and the price will play a part here) I can determine where the buttonholes will start and finish. 4 in/10 cm between buttons is good for the 7/8 in/23 mm button I have chosen, so I add the size of the buttonhole to the 4 inches and round it to 5 inches between the start of each vertical buttonhole. Based on my swatch, I can work back to having the first hole start at 20 cm from the bottom of the hem, and 5 holes will do it, with the top one likely never being buttoned and the 4th one exactly at my bust point/underarm.
OMG! I just realized in that pattern, Geezer Chic, I never told how to finish off the band – either no one ever made it, or they figured it out for themselves! I’m going to go with the latter but here’s what I do. Knit the number of rows for the band and at the end – don’t cast off. Just close the end by switching to full needle rib/zigzag, tighten the tension to about T4/4 and K3R. Cut the yarn and drop from the machine. Being cotton, this needs to be laundered before attaching the band. I put it together, except for attaching the sleeves and the bands (and the patch pockets). Darn in the ends on the sleeves, side seams etc. but not the centre front edges – these tails can be drawn into the tubular band after and save some time. After laundering, pin band in place, try on and check that it looks good. The end can be ripped back to the required length. Then, simply take the tail of yarn in a darning needle and thread it through the loops, one from each side across the row to the other side and secure it to the desired width. No point in trying to cast off as it will just widen, stiffen and look bad. Do this after the band is attached - I just took  this photo to show you how to do it.
 I’m calling this Lipstick and Smoke!