First, Place the open stitches of one shoulder onto the teeth of the linker, with the good side facing you.
Now place the corresponding shoulder onto the teeth, with the wrong side facing you. Leave this waste yarn on while linking, it helps hold the piece on the linker teeth.
See how easily the stitches slide onto the teeth. Note that you have the loop on the teeth, not the gap in between each stitch.
After linking, remove from the linker. Remove the waste yarn. You have a nice chain stitch through the open stitches.
After both shoulder seams are linked, start on the neck. This design has one long neckband that goes all the way around the front and back, starting at the bottom of the V in the front. Place the base of the linker through the neck so you can place the entire piece on the linker. Start to place the edge stitches onto the teeth of the linker. At this point the neck is curved, so to ensure that the neckband lies flat, skip every fifth stitch.
Continue placing onto the teeth. You can see that there are some skipped stitches here.
After you have placed about a third of the neck opening onto the front, start at the centre back. Since you know how many stitches are in the neckband, place your marked centre back at the midpoint of the neckband. I had 260 stitches in my neckband, so the centre is at 130.
Here you can see where the seam for the shoulder will end up. Note that there are ends to be tied in.
I make sure that the seam has a tooth of its own, its just neater that way. See how the tooth is going under the threads of the seam, rather than onto actual stitches.
The neck has been placed onto the teeth up to the seam. Now wind the two ends above and below the teeth before placing the piece onto the teeth. The ends will be linked into the wrong side.
Now start to place the neckband onto the linker, one stitch per tooth.
I have marked the centre point of the neckband as well so I can be sure I've matched it to the centre back of the body.
Pull to make sure the stitches are properly on the teeth and that none are misplaced to one side.
Start linking the neckband on. Since the entire neckband is too long to fit onto the linker, I do about 3/5 to start.
Here I am turning 'the corner' from the cast off centre portion of the back neck, up the side where I'd started knitting the second half of the neck. I give a little tug on this end before winding in the loose end onto the teeth so they are linked into the back.
Here is the entire neckband linked on, with the waste yarn still in place. As you can see its quite long, so I'd linked up to about 3/5 of the distance, then pulled that off the machine and continued to place the rest of the pieces onto the teeth to complete the linking of the entire 260 stitches.
Without the waste yarn.
Now I am starting to attach the armbands. Here I've placed the horizontal cast off area onto the teeth and I'm turning the corner to go up the side. I skip one stitch here to tighten up the band as it turns this tight corner. (the tool is there to show where the stitch was skipped)
I continue to place the stitches on, skipping every third until I'm past the really curved part of the armhole. As I get to the straighter part of the armhole I'll skip every 6th stitch. On straight edges I'll skip every 10th.
Here's a better photo of a tooth through the seam at tooth 82.
I've taken the left side off to wind in the ends to be linked into the back.
I'd wound one end in, now I'm alternating the second one to prevent distortion.
The ends are wound on and I'm placing the stitches onto the teeth.
Starting to link, make sure the hook grabs the yarn! I always manually advance the linker for the first stitch.
Yep, its grabbed on there!
The holder is in place and I'm ready to go!
When I get to the end I make sure I disengage the yarn from the hook by enlarging that loop and pulling it out.
Cut off the yarn.
Pull the stitch through to end.
Remove the piece from the linker.
The piece with waste still attached.
Look, the centre of the band lined up with the seam!
On the second armband I discover some loose edge stitches.
I've pulled out the loose end, spit on it, then tied with a square knot.
Linking the second band.
There, both bands are on.
See how nice that linking is! And, note the ends just ready to snip off.
I'm now sewing a side seam. Here are two increases. I make sure that I keep placing just the edge stitch onto the teeth even though there were increases. Note, there are 30 rows of ribbing, but they only need to go up to about the 20th tooth as they are much tighter than regular stockinette.
While knitting I encountered a knot, so I pulled it to the side. Now it is easy to deal with this. They will be tied and linked in after the second piece is in place.
I've just arrived at the band,and there's an end to link in.
So I wind that along for a few teeth forwards then backwards to really anchor it.
Ready to place the band on now.
The first side is now on the linker.
Starting to place the second piece on, wrong side towards me this time.
Here I am matching up the increases. Since they are on alternate rows, they should be offset by one tooth from each other.
There, so they are.
From this side its a little more difficult to place the edge on, you sort of roll it onto the teeth, being careful to not split the yarn and to get just that one edge stitch onto the teeth.
Continuing my way up the side, matching stitch for stitch.
See how they match, stitch to stitch, one row per tooth.
Here are the ends associated with that knot, tied off with a square knot and wound above and below the teeth to be linked in. Note that I wound each end in different direction, to spread the bulk along the seam.
I've got to the second band, I match up the edges of the bands.
Placing the edge stitch of the ribbing onto the teeth.
Some ends are ready to be dealt with. First I tie with a square knot.
Since this is a side seam, not a neckband, I can deal with ends on both sides of the knitting.
Winding in the second end, alternated from the first one.
The ends are ready to link in. I also have one at the extreme left to deal with.
There, that one is wound down to the seam, then back a few stitches to anchor it.
Another view of the ends.
I've also wound in the ends at the other end of the knitting.
As I'm linking I hold the ends down out of the way so they don't pop up and foul the linking mechanism.
Pulling the knitting off the linker. See, only one end to deal with! The rest are linked in and ready to snip off.
Off the machine now.
And the ends are snipped off.
All the ends are snipped, as you can see there's just the one end to sew in.
As opposed to all the ends that are about to be dealt with on the second side seam.
Notice that I stopped linking before going around the edge of the ribbing. Instead I sew this piece, it is less bulky and gives a neater finish. I bring the needle through the ribbing and out the final loop.
A view from the side to show the needle through the final loop.
The I start sewing in the end, going under each linker loop.
Alternating the direction.
Until I've gone far enough to securely anchor the end.
And then snip it off. I leave about half an inch so it doesn't start working its way back out.
The final seem, looks as good as mattress stitch!
Here is the inside of the top, the neck is ready to be finished.
I start by sewing down the edge of the band that is visible.
I simply sew down the edge, between the first and second stitches. I've tried to seam it by turning this over, but it makes the edge very bulky. This way is much flatter.
I'm sewing it down on the ribbing edge of the linked edge of the band.
Getting to the end...
And I firmly sew down the final edge.
I've brought it through to the wrong side of the work to sew in the end.
I sew the end in until I get to another end to tie it to with a square knot. This is to ensure this whole thing doesn't come loose in the future.
Another view.
Now I'm sewing the other end of the band, to the inside seam. You don't have to be quite as nitpicky here as it won't be seen.
Continuing along...
You can see that I'm sewing through the edge stitches.
Tieing that end in as well to another end piece.
Sew the ends into the edge....
Sew in the final end that was hanging around on the front. I bring it through to the back.
The final product!
What it looks like from the inside.
The finished top, before washing.
After washing in the washer and dryer. The blue top in the background has been worn several times and the bottom ribbing is stretched out a bit and doesn't pull in the sides quite so much.
