OPTION 1: Work the front exactly as you did the back. It's that simple. You might want to decide at this point which you want to be the front and which you want to be the back and mark them (with a safety pin or something like that) so you know which is which when the sweater is done (so you know which half to sew the personalized label on ).

Option 1 will give you a rectangular opening for your head to go through. Your head really doesn't care what shape the opening is, as long as it can get through. You can still pick up and knit a "crew neck" ribbing around it -- you're going to be putting a roundish neckband on a square opening, but it can be done. I've seen it done, and it's hard to tell that the neck opening is actually square when the ribbing is complete. You can also do a true square ribbing, by picking up the neckband, marking the corners, and working double-decrease miters at each of the corners. I've also seen that done, and it is a really nice design feature.

The rectangular opening is going to be higher than a regular crew neck, however. There will be a certain amount of "drop" to the neck opening provided by the saddles; if you don't like a high neckline, however, you can pick up the stitches on each individual saddle, then knit 8 rows before you cast on the stitches for the center neckline. You'll still have a rectangular opening, but the front neckline will be lower than the back neckline by about an inch. If you choose to do this, just be sure that you're on the correct pattern row for each chart.

CAN I MAKE A CARDIGAN?
Absolutely. You'll need to split the front panel. If you have four repeats of the AH pattern, split it down the middle. If you have an odd number of repeats, add half a repeat to each side. The button band is going to add an extra inch of width to the front of the sweater, but I don't generally reduce the width of the pattern panels to compensate. Since women's fronts are wider than their backs due to our anatomical structure , I leave the extra width there. You'll work the front the same as the back, except that you'll only cast on half the number of stitches for the front neck for each side, and you'll work them separately.

As usual, questions welcome, since I probably forgot something.

Janet
jknitter@digisys.net

Q & A:

After knitting the 8 rows on each saddle, how do I attach these new
stitches of the saddles to the front & back?  Or do I do this as I'm
knitting?

You're not adding 8 more rows to each saddle. I know it sounded like that in my first post, but just forget I said that. :-) You're going to pick up stitches along the edge of a saddle (just as you did for the back), but then you're going to knit 8 rows of the cable pattern. You're going to do the same thing on the other side. Then you'll knit across the first side, cast on stitches for the center neck, then knit across the other side.

Would a picture help? I can see if I can draw one, scan it, and get it posted on the SOA page. Computers are wonderful, but they have their limits....

Janet
jknitter@digisys.net