King Cole top in Cobalt: finished and blocked

January 26, 2014 by Elaine 2 Comments

Really pleased with the finished look of the top

It hasn’t taken much time at all to make this top and I am really pleased with how it has turned out. Knitting up the neckband didn’t take much time but it when it came to picking up and knitting the sleeve bands, I spotted a sequencing problem with the pattern itself.

As I mentioned in one of the earlier posts about this project, one of the things I really liked was the fact that the sleeves, such as they are, were knitted up as part of the front and back panels. For someone, like me, who hates putting sleeves in, this was a massive bonus.

So with both of the main pieces completed, the next part of the instructions was to sew up the right shoulder which, due to the nature of this pattern, included the section of seam down to the sleeve edge. With this seam sewn I was able to pick up and knit the stitches for the 8 rows of the neckband.

Despite a sequencing error in the pattern, the sleeve band and tab turned out okay.

The neckband completed, the next instruction was to do with the sleeve bands (both alike) and this was where the pattern came a little unstuck.

‘Pick up and knit 74 stitches all around the sleeve edge‘ the pattern said. Well this was fine for the right hand sleeve as the right shoulder seam (which goes down to the sleeve edge remember) had already been sewn up prior to the neckband being knitted.

But what about the left sleeve? At this stage the left shoulder seam was still open and thinking I had missed a section of the instructions, I reread the pattern from where I had finished the front.

Nope! Not there.

Confused I skipped the sleeve band and the button tabs instructions and moved on to the very last section of the pattern, the ‘To make up‘ part and sure enough, the very first line read:

‘Join left shoulder and neck and seam.”

After blocking

I rattled off an email to King Cole pointing out the problem and received a reply confirming that there was indeed an error, thanking me for letting them know and assuring me that the pattern would be corrected and reprinted.

It didn’t take very long at all to finish the sleeve bands and button tabs. Sewing the button tabs and buttons on, completed the top and all that remained was for me to block it which I did overnight. So there you have it a gorgeous Cobalt top for summer, or maybe even layered over a long or three quarter sleeved top through out the year.