How to crochet a v-neck collar

Who doesn't love a v-neck jumper? It must be one of the most classic fit ever!
And shaping a v-neck sounds easy enough, doesn't it? Just a few decreasing rows and VOILÀ, it's done! But then... then you start crocheting a ribbing around it, and the perfect v-neck shape is lost! Now it's all rounded and a bit sad-looking, pulling in all the wrong places!

Well, let's hope at the end of reading this post, you will never have this problem again! 

I'll show you my favourite method to crochet a ribbing for a v-neck, which I recently used in one of my patter, the Hearts on your Sleeves sweater. (I always jump between jumper and sweater... I live in England so I use jumper more than sweater, or my very Brit partner makes fun of me... but for patterns I use sweater, because for crochet pattern written in English, that's definitely used more... And I'll close here this unrequested justification!)

v-neck in the Hearts on your Sleeves sweater pattern

To explain how to crochet the perfect ribbing for a v-neck jumper, I created a little example v-neck (I'm sorry, I don't have a v-neck project at the minute, so this crazy swatch will do!).

Materials:

I'm using here Drops Paris with a hook size 5 mm.

This is not really important, since this is a tutorial. So I'll give you a few general tips for the designs you are working on or planning next!

Generally, ribbing is made with smaller size hooks compared to the body... However, I sometimes don't feel like this is the right thing to do! Sizing down the hook means you will highly impact the way the shape of the neck is, and you will pull and stretch the stitches around the neck. Sometimes this is what we want... I don't really love it! So, I actually recommend using the same hook size or just  half a size less... In particular if you are using very stretchy ribbing, as for example, alternating back-loop-only slip stitch, or alternating back-loop-only slip stitch and yarn over slip stitch. 

Learn more about ribbing alternating back-loop-only slip stitch
and yarn over slip stitch reading Perfect Ribbing #1

Abbreviations (US terminology):

single crochet - sc

slip stitch - slst

chain - ch

Tutorial:

For this tutorial, I'm doing a simple ribbing alternating back-loop-only single crochet stitches. I'll show you the steps using a mock v-neck. 

v-neck mock for the tutorial

Collar set up: 

When building the ribbing for a v-neck jumper, the first step I like to do is to sc around the v-neck opening. Here I'm using sc for the ribbing in itself, but I like to set up the collar with sc stitches whatever are the stitches I use for the ribbing! 

To start placing sc stitches around the collar, I attach my yarn at the centre of the v-neck facing the right side (that is the side of the jumper I want to be visible when I wear the jumper!)

Attach yarn into the centre of the v-neck

Place a slip stitch in the centre of the v-neck

start placing sc around

When placing sc stitches around the v-neck, you want to be careful and place them always at the same distance from each other (of course, this is hand made so things are not that perfect!).

One big tip I learned after many trials and errors, it's to be careful about not leaving gaps! To avoid gaps, I sometimes go behind the stitches, to insert my hook into the string behind as well as the one in the front. You can have a look at how I set up the collar with sc stitches here (and you can see what I mean with going behind the stitches to avoid gaps):

We finish setting up the collar, placing a sc stitch in the first slip stitch we placed. Then we fasten off!

How it looks after fasten off

Ribbing: 

Now we attach the yarn again, and here is when things start going differently from the usual!

We do not attach the yarn at the centre of the v-neck, or at the centre of the back! We attach the yarn a certain number of stitches away from the centre of the v-neck. In this case, I attach my yarn 5 stitches away from the centre of the v-neck. This means we are going to have a ribbing with a height of 5 stitches! If you want a bigger collar, you want to start more stitches away from the centre of the v-neck. For a shorter collar, the opposite!

Step 1:

We attach the yarn 5 stitches away from the v-neck central stitch. We now place 5 sc stitches, going from where we attached the yarn to the central stitch of the v-neck.  The last sc stitch will be placed in the centre of the v neck.

Then, we place 2 slip stitches, in the next two stitches of the collar set up, on the opposite side of the v-neck. So we placed 7 stitches in total: 5 sc, and 2 slip stitch.

Now we ch 1, and turn!

Step 2:

We want to place again 5 sc stitches. We skip the 2 slst, and place 5 back-loop-only sc along the 5 sc stitches we crocheted in Step 1.

Now we ch 1, and turn!

Step 3:

We place 5 back-loop-only sc stitches, then we place 2 slst along the collar set up sc stitches.

Now we ch 1, and turn!

We keep repeating Step 2 & Step 3 up to the moment we have placed slst all along the collar set up stitches!

You can watch the video here: 

This is the situation once we have slst into
all the stitches along the collar set up!

here the collar looks insanely big... but it is just because the v-neck opening would have been big enough only for a doll! 

Now, we just need to sew the sides together (or slst them together) and weave in our ends!

To learn more about ribbing stitches, you can go and check out the tutorial Perfect Ribbing #1

If you'd like to have an invisible seam, you can head over here: Invisibly seam technique

To see what I'm up to you can follow me on insta at @o_layarn

Go and look around this nook, because many things are already up and many others are coming!