This was a Greek tragedy. Not only is this dress one of my favorite garments that I’ve ever made for myself, but it’s a tunic knit in sock yarn. It took FOREVER to knit. Well, not really forever but six weeks of nightly knitting is pretty close to in my book. I wore it so much that the neckline got stretched out beyond the point of use. But don’t worry, I fixed it. See?
I planned to try three things to try to fix the neckline in the order of the amount of effort they required (and also in the reverse order from what I thought was likelihood of success). They were:
Wash it, turn it inside out, and throw it in the drier.
Crochet a slip-stitch chain around the neckline.
Unpick the neckline and reknit the whole thing.
I wouldn’t normally suggest using the drier but this dress was knit with superwash yarn when I had a young baby with a tendency to puke everywhere. When it came to clothing if I couldn’t use a machine to wash and dry it I didn’t own it.
Superwash wool grows when it gets wet and doesn’t come back unless you pop it in the drier for a bit (which, yes, is risky). As I had completely dried the swatch in a machine before beginning the project and had dried the dress multiple times before as well, I was confident that doing it here would not ruin this particular dress in this particular yarn.
The dress came out of the drier fine, but the neckline was still stretched out so I moved onto the next thing on my list: a crochet chain.
The slip-stitch chain worked perfectly. If you have a neckline that’s stretched out and needs to be stabilized give it a try. It’s so easy and is certainly less involved than unpicking from a cast on and reknitting the whole thing.
How to use a crochet slip stitch to stabilize a knit neckline:
You will need a small crochet hook a few sizes smaller than the knitting needle equivalent that you used to knit whatever it is you’re fixing and a small amount of yarn.
Note: I worked this from the Right Side because I like the look of the chain. If you don’t want to see the chain work this as follows from the Wrong Side.
First, put the crochet hook underneath both legs of the first stitch on the neckline and pull through a loop.
Then put the hook under both legs of the next stitch and pull through a second loop.
Pull the second stitch through the first stitch. You now have one stitch on your hook. Repeat the last two steps until you have finished the neckline.
I would advise not weaving in any ends until you’ve tried it on and made sure the neckline works. That way if it’s too tight it will be easier to rip out and redo. Remember that you’re working with a smaller hook try to keep your crochet loops loose while working the chain.