neck too tight
 

I have knitted an adult christmas jumper, but the neck will be too tight to go over the head. I am at the stage of making it up and I wondered if I could pick up stiches along the side of the crew neck and a little into the shoulder and make a flap button strip? Can anybody forsee any problems with this. I really don't want to unravel the neck and make it bigger. I am not a very experienced knitter tho. what would a pattern be for the strip? How would I make a hole for the button and position them evenly? I have put so much work into this and I feel that it will come to nothing. Peease help!

You could make a buttonband at the top of the front shoulder. The number of stitches and placement of the buttonholes would depend on the gauge that you have on the neckband (this is in a rib pattern?). But I think a cleaner solution is to take out the neckband and re-knit it with a larger needle. It's even possible that the problem's not with the neckband itself but with the bind off. In that case, you need only re-do the bind off using a larger needle in your right hand or a stretchy bind off.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53Mtbkyf5CQ

Thanks so much for your reply. I think that when I picked up and knitted from the neck to start the neckband, that it was too tight there. I followed the right pattern requirements, but it seems too small. Your reply got me thinking though, the main body of the sweater is stocking stitch, knit a row purl a row, but the neck band is knit 2 purl 2 rib - so a stocking stitch flap would not fit in with the rib part/neck band. Unless I could knit st.st up to the neck band and then do a sideways rib? Is this possible? I can't face taking the neckband off. I think that I'd never get it back together again. Maybe a st.st band wouldn't look too odd overlapping the rib?

If it were me I would would do as salmonmac says and try a different bind off before making any decision about trying something else. I was thinking of the same one she linked to. It might seem a bit tricky at first but it really isn't once you do it. Since you followed the pattern, I really do think the bind off is the most likely culprit.

If I understand, what you're suggesting is like children's sweaters that have an extra band across one shoulder. Usually you just continue the stocking stitch of the sweater body as k2p2 rib when you get to the shoulder. On the front the band has buttonholes and on the back, it's a buttonband. You can certainly do this but you may be happier after all the work on the sweater body, if you take out the neckband and pick up sts with a larger size needle. This will help especially if you think it was in the initial pick up that the neck became too tight.
Well, give one of the methods a try and see if you like it. The good part is that you can always take it out the re-do it.