KnitPicks Summer Yarn Sale. Save up to 50%.

I have decided to provide all my content and knitting patterns for free. This means that my income comes from advertisements.

This webiste contains affiliate links meaning that if you buy something after clicking them I may earn a small commission. This does not result in any additional costs to you and the money I get from the yarn sales enables me to use my time to create free content for you. If you decide to purchase I’m really grateful for your support!

Fixing the neckline of a top-down circular yoke sweater

This is a story of how you can fix a big mistake in the beginning of a top down sweater without having to rip back the whole body.

I casted on Zweig sweater last week and after several evenings of work I had finally completed the lace and colorwork and separated the sleeves. I tried the sweater on and noticed that there was something wrong with the yoke (lesson learned: don’t be lazy and try the sweater on more often).

Quite soon I came to the conclusion that the problem was the first colorwork section which was way too tight (a classical beginner mistake). At first I was not too concerned since blocking usually helps and so I blocked the sweater. However, the problem remained and I thought that there is no way I will rip back all the lace.

First the colorwork section was way too tight. The yarn I used was Hedgehog Fibres Sock Yarn in colorway Hunter and Wish.

Because I just recently learned the techniques for kitcheners stitch and afterthought heel I started thinking that maybe it would be possible to cut the sweater into half and then rip back the colorwork, remake it and finally seam the pieces together with kitcheners stitch. Good news, it totally worked! Read below the steps for fixing the yoke.

1. Pick up the stitches

First I used two long circular needles for picking up the stitches below and above the colorwork section that I wanted to remake. Check out this youtube video for detailed instructions of how to do it. I chose rows where the next row was of different color. That made it easier to spot the stitches. Before proceeding I calculated the stitches to make sure that the number of stitches matched the pattern.

Ready to unravel the colorwork section.

2. Unravel the colorwork

Up next came the scary part where I had to cut one stitch between the cables and start to unravel. I had stitch markers nearby in case I had not done picking up the stitches correctly and needed to save a dropped stitch. This part went actually quite smoothly and there were no dropped stitches.

3. Remake the colorwork and seam the pieces together

Then I took the upper part of the sweater and knitted the few rows of colorwork again. Next I took the pieces and started to seam so that the purl sides and the beginnings of the rounds were facing each other. If you are not familiar how to make seams with Kitchener stitch check out this tutorial. The beginnings of the rounds do not have to match exactly but the neck shaping needs to be approximately at right place. In addition I recommend to place stitch marker for instance every 20th stitch so you can easily keep track on that there is as many stitches both on front and back needle. For some reason when I reached the end of my seam I noticed that I had 7 stitches more on the other needle and had to remake part of the seam.

Problem solved!

4 Responses

  1. This is amazing! Wish I had seen this article before trying to fix mine. I’ve sent you a message on Instagram, please, if you have time, help me. Thank you.

  2. You may be saving me here! just got to the lower part of the body and realized I have this puffy yoke above the colour work- argh. Will try to do what you did! thanks

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Knit Socks that last

I’ll send you my top 5 tips of how to make a durable pair of socks.