Larch: Collar and Button Band revisited

My neck is much better today, I was able to roll out of bed without wincing this morning.
Maybe the pain in my neck that I'm feeling is my inability to finish this collar.

yep, I'm still on the collar. It's starting to seem like the pattern isn't as well-written as I thought.
I zoomed through the body, zoomed through the sleeves, and the collar, is well, challenging, and as other people have states on their project notes, the pattern assumes you know what you're doing.

Either the designer is left-handed, or I am not "getting" what she is saying. I finally picked up enough stitches for the collar in the twisted rib, to fill in the collar dip section. Next, I'm supposed to pick up the button band from the RS, but along left front edge, collar, and right front edge. These instructions usually refer to the left front edge of the collar garment. from the perspective of the person wearing the cardigan, not facing on the sweater. So, either the lady is left-handed, or I can't get how she is doing this. I picked up right front edge of the cardigan, collar, and left front edge, and by this, I mean pick up and knit as stated in the pattern.  To tighten the stitches, I wanted to pick up and knit tbl, which ended up twisting the stitches, closing the holes.  I ended up with at least one row which is knit prior to doing the twisted rib, which looks awful. So, 2 hours of pick up and knit and begin the rib at knit night, and I pulled it out in the last 10 minutes of knit night. Fun. Fun. I tried to pick up and knit /purl the rib in twisted rib pattern, but it still looks odd.

I'm going to try my original plan, even though it veers from the instructions (sorry Amy), and try picking up WS with purls so that the edge of the rib attempts to match the other parts where the rib has been attached. I'll see if this works, if not, I'll be ripping again.

2 weeks to knit the body, 3 weeks to knit the sleeves with an adjustment to the pattern as written to make the top of the cap look symmetrical; Now, 3 weeks and counting on the collar alone to get it to sit the way I like, and to interpret the designer's plans. 

Overall, I'm feeling less anxious about seaming since I've talked to a half dozen people about it and they've told me to pin and over pin the parts of the sleeves, and to seam loosely, beware of tightening and pulling too tight too quickly, start at the top of the sleeve and work downwards. I'm also seriously thinking of at least blocking the top of the sleeve, and the armhole, since it's been curling something fierce.

Here's hoping I'll be finished soon as I'm already dreaming about starting some other projects.