Happy Accident?

When I knit my 3 a.m. sweater last spring, I had a blast. 

I knew that I wouldn't need it right away, being summer was coming, so there was no pressure of time for it at all.  It was stripes and I just had the best time knitting it. 

But, it is fall and it is time to wear it.  There were things left to do.  Saturday morning, I added buttons from the button box. 

Nothing Fancy, that is for sure.  Just ordinary buttons from the button box.  I'm pretty pleased with them.  They really do suit the sweater with their strong colour changes, and that they are not all exactly the same.  The swath of dark moves around on the edge, but it works with a yarn where the colours move and change as Noro does. 

And then it was time to look at solutions to an oops. 

Apparently I like knitting short rows.  A lot.  I was having such a good time, that I didn't stop knitting short rows when I ought to have, and instead of being sensible, and pulling them back, I just kept on knitting.  I actually remember telling myself, 'Achhh, what the heck.  It will be fine...'  Those excess rows make the collar stand a bit oddly on the back of my neck, rather than laying flat across my back and on my shoulders and create a bit of a hump when I do roll the collar down.  This bothered me at first because I had so much fun knitting it, and I am really pleased with everything else about the sweater, right up to and including my choice to knit full sleeves (Note to self:  Knit more long sleeves).

Some time ago, Susan from the Rainey Sisters blog  (You must go check out the post from today, her Snowfall hat pattern.  And Mittens!  They are just adorable!)  had a sweater that had this problem and she did a great post on how she fixed it. 

She was creating a short row, where I need to take some out, but maybe? 

I don't want to cut the fabric yet, but decided to try taking out the excess fabric by simply sewing, to see if it would help.  It's possible that I need to take excess out on the shoulders rather than on the back of the neck so I wanted to try it first.

I sewed a mattress stitch to pull the excess out of the good side of the sweater.  The white stitches are just a path that i did not want to go beyond.  A map if you will.  The mattress stitch is the long floats of coordinating yarn ;aying on the surface.  When I pulled tight, it left me with this little pouch of fabric on the inside 

and this on the outside.

Not perfect by any means but this is just a test to see it it helps the way the collar lays. I've left long strands of yarn to pull it out with when I decide what to do.

All of this is exacerbated by living in new digs.  In the spring, when I was knitting this, I still had my big chairs with library perfect high backs.  I was here much of the winter, and never noticed the airflow from the half up/half down entrance we have.  My new furniture has a much more average height back and I am much more aware of the way air moves just behind the sofa.  You would think this wouldn't matter, but I find that the back of my neck always seems to be chilly.  If the back of my neck is chilly, no matter what I do, I feel chilly. 

But... The thing is, thinking about it all, yesterday, I started to wonder if a standing collar on a sweater might be a good thing, not a bad thing. An extra layer in an area I feel chill on?  I am debating if spring time folly is falls happy accident.  And that is my pondering for the day.