binding off with a pattern

[gcp]

I am knitting a sweater that has a cable pattern in the center. I am at the point when it is time to bind off for the neck. how do I handle the cable pattern --- Do I bind off in the pattern?

Thanks much!

[salmonmac]

You should bind off in pattern and it makes a neater edge if you knit 2sts together once or even twice over the cable sts. How often you k2tog depends on the width of the cable. It also helps to make a nicer edge if you're not binding off in the row or two right after the cable twist.

[gcp]

I am supposed to bind off 14 stitches

The pattern is p1, sl 2 sts to cn and hold in back, k1 RT, k1 then p2 from cn; sl 4 sts to cn and hold in front, p2, then (k1, rt, k1) from cn, p1

After this row it says

Working both sides at once, bind off 5 sts at each neck edge once, 4 sts once, 3 sts once , etc...

thoughts?

Thank you so much

[suzeeq]

BO in just plain knit and purl stitches. If you're on a row where the sts should be crossed for the cable, don't;, just p1, k2, p2, k2 etc, or whatever you do for the rows where the sts aren't crossed.

[salmonmac]

When you bind off sts that are part of a cable pattern, you want to avoid getting a bound off edge that "fans" out and interrupts the line of the bind off. This is especially true at the shoulders. At the neck edge, since you're binding off in short groups of sts, you'll probably be interrupting the cables anyway. If a cable happens to fall into one of the groups for bind off, k2tog over the middle two sts and continue with the bind off. You may be picking up sts around this neck for the collar anyway.