New Knitter-question about adding a placket to a cardigan

[sharonb]

Hello, I'm a new knitter. I'm finishing my second ever project. It's a cardigan sweater and the instructions are to pick up and knit stitches along the front edge. The goal is to make a placket with buttonholes. My problem is that the pattern tells the number of stitches I should be picking up and I'm getting too many. The sweater is striped, so it's pretty easy to see how many stitches there are. All the measurements seem good on the sweater and the gauge seems good. What I'm wondering is am I supposed to pick up every stitch along the way even if I end up with more than the pattern calls for or should I leave off picking some up to match the number called for. Examples of how it's off--Pattern says pick up 70 stitches along front of sweater and I have 74, then pick up 42 along the sloping edge (it's a V neck) and I have 42 there. Then pick up 30 across the back and I have about 38. And so on...A couple of times while working this pattern I came across things that didn't work and a more experienced knitter told me it was just a mistake in the pattern and didn't make sense. Can anyone help? I have no idea what to do about the numbers not matching. Thanks.

[Hildegard_von_Knittin]

Usually, your stitch gauge is going to be different than your row gauge. If you just have a few stitches too many, rip back and skip a few "holes" when you're picking up... if you have 5 too many stitches, skip 5 holes as you pick up along the way (space them apart so you don't have a big gap or pucker) and it should work out fine!

Congrats to you for doing a cardigan as your second project!

[Ingrid]

I agree. You don't generally pick up every single stitch along the front of a sweater edge. Try to get as many as the pattern tells you to. If you get too many, your front may sag.

[sharonb]

Okay. Thanks for the advice! I appreciate it.