Despite the oppressive heat this weekend, I worked with wool and finished the collar on the Devonshire jacket:
It is far too hot to try it on, even early in the morning, and so the modeling will have to wait until it is cooler. I did try it on for a fleeting moment, and I’m pleased with the look and the softness of Zara around my neck. It also became apparent that tucking in the ends will be an evening’s work when I’m up to that. The construction of the collar is very interesting. I’m not sure this is “pure Chanel”, but Jean Frost has the shoulder seam dropped about 2 inches below the top of your shoulder. The front armhole is 2 inches longer than it would be if the seam sat at the top of your shoulder. The back shoulder seams align with the back neck edge. When you finish the back, you leave live stitches all along the top of the back rectangle. And then when you assemble the fronts and back, you do a three-needle bind off along one shoulder, bind off in the traditional way across the neck edge, and then do a three-needle bind off along the second shoulder:
Here is a close-up of one shoulder and the neck edge.
This makes for a very elegant look at the top edge of the jacket, and I will consider this technique again for sweaters with a similar shape. One possible reason for this construction is that it is difficult to line up slip-stitch patterns. I noticed this first on the Morehouse Family Sweater that I knit for my son:
On Devonshire, the “orange dots” are shifted by one stitch, and they also don’t line up perfectly.
I was tempted to fiddle with the alignment by having an uneven shoulder edge—making the stitches line up in the fabric, and having one stitch “stick out” at the shoulder. But then I considered how little of the seam would actually show. The seam falls at my upper back, and the collar covers most of it:
I’m actually quite pleased at this bit of finishing. I haven’t reblocked the sleeve, but I’m doing that now. I can work on the front edging for the next couple of nights and the pocket finishing. I just hope that Con Ed is on the ball with its supply of power, and there are no brownouts (or worse) making it totally impossible to work on wool or anything else. When will it be Fall?