Roll, Collar, Roll

The vest, which is now dubbed Pike's Peak, was almost a breeze to sew together.  The pattern, as I have probably already mentioned, includes a seam right down the center back of the collar.  There is nothing wrong with a center seam.  Go check out the racks of ready-to-wear and without too much effort, you'll find such a design.

Maybe if I were height enhanced and graced with an elongated swan like ballerina style neck, a seam - which would tend to make the collar stand up tall and stretched - could look good.  But people!  My proportions just can't work with that design. 

 A bit of grafty work was just the ticket.  I'll not give away the whole of the Berroco pattern design, but will let you know that the two chunky cables and the RSS edging (which is purposely designed to roll to the right side) continue up the vest fronts to wrap around the neck. 

All that was required was to sit in the kitchen and use the kitchener stitch to make it all work out for moi.  Since I don't do fancy stuff like graft purl stitches, all that I did was work the normal KPPK across the RSS from the wrong side (where the knit stitches look like knit stitches), move the yarn with needle to the right side (where the cables are looking like cables), flip the work and continue onward grafting across the cable work.  Low and behold!  Smooth stitch work, no bulky seam and a fully squishy collar around my neck.

 NOTE!  BIG WARNING!  READ THIS BEFORE TRYING! 
Now that I have your attention, it is important to remember that the kitchener stitch actually adds in a row of stitches.  For my row count (yours might be different) the result is a longer "space" between the crossed cables.

Because I wanted this to become a squishy collar, the final result is that the RSS and elongated space between cables both have the same appearance.  It's like a little miracle. 

And, because I know that some where at a knit group in the future someone will ask to see the underside, here is a photo of how the wrong side looks once grafted. 

At first, it did not look this good.  There was a bit of a do over until I was able to get the tension of the grafted stitches to match the actual knit gauge.  Turns out that a soft collar of worsted merino worked on a US #10 does not need to be yanked tight like the toe of a sock knitted down on a US #1.

Pesky gauge.