Mistake: no collar shaping in sweaters

I've written quite a few post of do's and dont's, but only today did the idea of dedicating a post specifically to things I personally do not recommend other beginner knitters after learning the hard way to not do it.

This first post is a good example of what I have in mind. Knitting a sweater with no collar shaping is not what most knitters would call a mistake, or even tell you to never do it. On the contrary, most often this is recommended for a knitter attempting a first sweater. The idea is to make your first sweater as simple as possible, by focusing on the absolutely necessary, like, well... including arms, for example.

So you'll find plenty of patterns and tutorials recommended for the beginner that focus on the top-down, knit in the round, raglan-shoulder sweater, which is perceived as the simplest of methods to knit a sweater. Very often these do not include any form of collar shaping.

I followed one of these tutorials and... I still haven't manage to wear the result. My first sweater has a high collar that presses against the front of my neck in a very annoying way. I'm considering learning to steek, just so I can cut a collar on this sweater. When I think that I'm going to use steeks, only because I avoided using some simple short-rows at the beginning of my sweater... Oh, I want to cry!!

Mind you. I know that the tutorial I've used is extremely popular and that many people that have followed it are very happy with their sweaters. But be aware that you risk being one of those that, like me, will not be. Taking into account how easy it is to shape a collar, I say: risk not worth it.

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