Oh dear, I wish I could help you but I can't seem to understand even the simplest of patterns! I'm sure you will find help though! :)

Hi Alison! I did short row shaping and a three needle bind off on my shoulders. And YES at first I was confused by the back neck shaping. Then when I realized what was goin gon I ripped back and did the shortorwo onthe outside shoulder edges only. The back neck shaping I bound off as the pattern specified. I think it was worth the trouble as it went together very well.

I keep hearing about others shortening the armholes... no way would I have done that. I made the size small, and would not have wanted them any tighter..but then I hate tight stuff especially in the heat of summer, which is why I'm still considering ripping the whole thing out and making a medium.

of course this row should have read "Then when I realized what was going on, I ripped back and did the short rows on the outside shoulder edges only." sigh... shouldn't type before coffee...

As I told you yesterday in person, what I did was to make it a straight edge. Later I realized that there were too many stitches on one side and simply reworked them to decrease down to the appropriate number. I think it worked out all right. I will post a pictures (hopefully) later today and will officially christen my new blog.

This must be a rowan thing... is this sweater designed by Kim Hargraves? Pearl from Rowan 32 has the same type of shoulder cast off, side, side, and then middle... very weird and I am also having trouble visualizing how they go together.

Smooch looks great - I love your knit-along. I can vicariously knit this beautiful tank with tons of other knitters :)

I did short row shaping on the front and back and then a three needle bind off to join them. There are fourteen stitches that end up making up the shoulders. The way that I did it was to knit up to the ones that would be bound off on the next row on the previous row. I know that isn't elequently said, but it makes sence, really! So, if you were to bind off five on the first row, five on the second row, and then the middle four, I would knit row -1 up to the last five (K9) then turn and on row 1 knit four then turn and put all fourteen on a stitch holder.

It ended up with very neat insides and a very nice shoulder seam.

Good luck

Thanks to everyone for your tips and support! And a big smooch to Anne for helping me figure out what I need to do. Johanna, what you describe is exactly how I've been doing the shaping (I followed the instructions in the Wiseman finishing book), but the yarn is just not in the right place to "stop the row before" when you've got to bind off on both sides and do the middle last, particularly as you should knit one final row with all the stitches, picking up all those short row wraps.

So thanks to Anne for helping me add two and two together. I'd gotten far enough to figure out that those bound off stitches on the neck side really belong to the neck and not the shoulder. And Anne rightly says, well, just bind those off and keep making your nice sloping short row shoulder all on the other side. And everything is as it should be. Mmmwah! (Johanna, maybe this is what you actually did, intuitively?)

Gina, can't wait for the unveiling of the new blog!

I've just measured the armhole on my Smooch and it's 9 inches- an inch longer that the pattern and it's fine.

my purple panda was trying to do that retarded leaving the middle for last thing and i changed it b/c i thought it was unnecessary. :) for a girl who never changes anything, hard to believe i did it!! and i was mostly doing it b/c i was planning to do 3 needle bind-off but it didn't look good (because the pattern is weird, knit into stitch below on certain stitches) so i ended up ripping back and just standard binding off and i'll just have to sew a seam after all.

FYI w/ short rows, depends how bad yarn shows it but sometimes you can get away w/o going back and picking up the wraps with a final knit row. :)

I'm not following the pattern for shaping at all on this tank but when I bind off back necklines and slanted shoulders (like I'll be doing for this one), I usually start my first row of shaping by shortrowing the first group of stitches at the outer ends of the shoulders and AT THE SAME TIME I'll bind off the center stitches in one go, because shaping for both occurs over the same rows. Once I do that, I'll continue shortrowing the remaining groups of stitches at the outer ends of the shoulders while binding off the stitches at the neckline edge. Then I'll work one row over the remaining shoulder stitches I had shortrowed, and either put on stitch holders or bind off, depending on whether I'll be doing the three needle bind off or backstitching. (Damn, I wish I was actually there so I could show you!)

I've officially started smooch, cast on, did the bottom & the 3 garter rows above the picot edge & joined the whole squiggly looking mess into a round & after I finish the very next round, I change to larger needles & start the lace patterning...

I would have posted about it in my blog but 1: I was too busy knitting & 2: my computer's been acting up... will do that later, though, but MAKE ME PINK! :)

Color me red - both the smooch tank and my blog are up and running (though the blog still needs work). Please visit!

Linda, thanks for checking the armhole length for me. I love how yours came out (your comments weren't working yesterday, so I'll have to gush about your tank here!). I think I'm going to go with starting the neck at the level of the armholes as well, since it looks like it worked so well on yours.

Becky, I get what you're saying. Sounds like what Anne had done. Tonight I'll give it a try and see if it I can do it. But now that it finally makes sense to me, I think it shouldn't be a problem. Thanks for going through your process. It's a big help to have it explained specifically for this situation where neck stitches are also being bound off.

Thanks to all my tank girls!

help
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ok, i'm a beginner... and I've been trying to knit the neckline of a rowan pattern with biggie wool... sounds like Kim hargreaves does the same kind of thing on all her patterns..
I just can't make sense of it.
when she says, "bind off the first two stitches of the row, and then says, bind off remaining 2(2,3, etc) stitches, does that mean in the same row???
why not just say, "bind off all stitches remaining"?

also- reattach yarn and bind off center stitches.. attach yarn to the last stitch on the stitch holder???? how?
I know- I feel like a complete idiot.
I am a beginner and I need help!!
I did what I THOUGHT she was saying to do, and it looked weird and not smooth...
anyone?
I would greatly appreciate it.