Where were we in our saga? Ah, yes, fronts done up to the end of the short row instructions. The next bit was casting on for the back of the neck, which the instructions have you do separately for each side. What I did was cast on both sides worth of stitches altogether, joining both sides into one piece. I still really have to wonder why the pattern does not have you do it that way.
The flap is a nice straightforward knit till it’s the right length bit of this pattern. There was a moment of panic as I reached the correct length and showed my progress off to The Husband. I was trying to show him how the collar would sit and somehow managed to convince myself that I had twisted the collar when I cast on the back of the neck and joined the two pieces. Thankfully, he convinced me to put it down and look at it again in the light of morning. The next morning I realized I had been trying to label a shoulder as the collar and that got me all turned around. I put the live stitches at the bottom of the back collar flap onto waste yarn for the garter stitch striped edging.
The back was the last part of the main body of the sweater for me to knit, and I finished it without incident. Of course, once I cast it off at the back of the neck, it dawned on me that perhaps I should have done the back before completing the collar pieces as I could have simply picked up the back flap stitches rather than casting them on. Now I will need to seam across the entire shoulder/neck area. It will either help lend structure to the sweater or it will look funny; only one way to find out.