The ins & outs of necklines

Teaching is absolutely one of my most favoritest things on the planet, but a long teaching weekend definitely requires some adjusting on the other end! Routines have been disrupted, the inbox gets unspeakable, and everything feels just a little bit on the crazy side for a few days once I’m back home.

(The nice news on that front is that while I have some local events, I’m not truly traveling again until my own retreat. Over a month of “regular life”! It feels unspeakably luxurious.)

Today, I wanted to get back into a more regular routine and share a little bit about one of the questions I get most often in my classes:

How does one work a (fill in the blank) neckline?

Though it may not seem like it:


alta-cowl turtleneck tucci-collar shawl-collar

The answer is actually pretty simple! When it comes to removing those neckline stitches, there are relatively few actual neck shapes:

  • Vee necklines are the simplest, and remove the neck stitches evenly over the entire length of the neckline. Typical depths range between 1” (2.5 cm) above and 2” (5 cm) below armhole shaping.
  • Round necklines remove the neck stitches in three distinct areas: A BO section in the center, then two different rates of decrease. Typical depths range from around 3 – 3.5” (7.5 – 9 cm) for a crew neck and anywhere over 5” (12.5 cm) for a scoop.
    • All round necklines bind off between 40 – 55% of the neckline stitches.
    • Crew necklines then decrease half of the remaining stitches every row, and the rest every RS row.
    • Scoop necks decrease half of the remaining stitches every RS row, and the rest every 4th or 6th row.
  • Square necklines bind off all stitches at once. Typical depths range between 5 – 8” (12.5 – 21 cm).
  • Boat necklines bind off all but about 1” (2.5 cm) of stitches in the initial neck row, and then decrease at each end of every row or every RS row a few times. I prefer a typical depth of around 2” (5 cm) to ensure the boat neck ends just under my collarbone.

So if there are only four basic neck shapes, and many more things we think of as ‘necklines’, what gives? The answer lies in what you do with the neckline when you work the edging.

  • Round necklines form the basis for tons of different neckline shapes.
    • Turtlenecks are built off of crew necklines, and are between 7 – 9” (18 – 23 cm) in height. Thornes is a great example:
      thornes-final-2
    • Cowl necks are built off of scoop necklines, and are typically worked for 8 – 12” (20.5 – 30.5 cm) or more, depending on how luscious you want that cowl. The Trimmings cowl is 12” (30.5 cm):
      trimmings-cowl
    • Wide collars are also built off of crew necklines, whether on a cardigan or a pullover. Simply pick up stitches and then work for as long as desired. The collar on Tucci is around 8” (20.5 cm):
      tucci-second-pass-8
    • Finally, hoods are also built off of crew necklines. The simplest way to knit a hood is to pick up around the neck opening, knit until you clear your own head, then split your stitches between two needles and join them with a 3-needle bind-off. I worked a bit more shaping, but followed that basic procedure, for the hood on Dorica:
      Dorica-2
  • Vee necklines are the underlying shape for those shawl collars we love so much. A full description of the procedure is beyond this post (and will be coming soon!), but in short, the shawl part of the collar is shaped with short rows, to make the center back neckline twice as deep as the front edges of the neckline:
    shawl-collar
  • Finally, boat necklines are a great option if you want a slightly unusual twist on a more classic neckline, whether it’s a turtleneck, wide collar, or something else. These necklines were all worked like a variation above, but off of a boat neck shape instead of the usual:
    wintry-mix courant-turtle Holloway-1_medium2

And there you have it! Most of the necklines you’d like to make, demystified. I hope you’ve enjoyed this little spin around neckline design-land, and that it helps you both with the patterns you’re modifying by hand, and with the patterns you’re creating using CustomFit.

And on the CustomFit note – in conjunction with our next KAL announcement, we’ve got some SUPER exciting developments to share with you. So check back this weekend – and until then, happy knitting!

(Photo credits for this post: Knit to Flatterphotos courtesy Karen Pearson; Cornsilk, Trimmings, and Wintry Mix photos courtesy splityarn; Thornes, Courant, Alta, and Tucci courtesy Jonathan Herzog and/or me.)

3 thoughts on “The ins & outs of necklines

  1. Thanks for this neat analysis. This will really help me to design my own (or alter an existing pattern’s neckline) to suit my own taste.

  2. […] Herzog breaks down the differences between neckline styles in her usual amazing […]

  3. […] Amy Herzog : The Ins and Outs of Necklines […]

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