Argh!

So, the past couple weeks I have been working diligently on my Arbor sweater (after a LONG hiatus of about a year) and tonight I hit a huge road block.

I have gotten past the bust to where the ribbing starts, and like the crazy person I am, I am like oh!  I should go and finish the sleeves and collar so when I finish the bottom I am finished!  SO SMART!

Anyway, I used my second size 3 circ and went and finished one arm off.  DONE!  Then I went and finished the other arm off.  DONE!  That was easy.  

So tonight I went and picked up (what felt like a million) stitches for the neckline.  I do the little decrease like it says, I try it on, collar is still WAY too big.  I do another round of decreases.  I try it on again, still to big.  I do a final round of decreases (many fewer on this round).  I try it on, perfect!  So then I go to the pattern, ok applied i-cord bind off.  Never done that before.  So I look up the Knitty instructions and think, huh, that looks easy enough.

So off I go, I do my little i-cord bind off.  I think huh, this is coming out really tight.  What should be like 4 inches is now like 2.  So I rip that out (which sucked with tight decreases going on below this).  So then I am like, oh, I will just go up to a size 5, that should do the trick.  So I start with the size 5 (that I managed to drop A LOT!).  After a few stitches it still seems tight, so I have the brilliant idea to just do an i-cord row every couple stitches to give it some slack.  So I am chugging along watching American Idol and I get over a shoulder and I notice, huh this is still TOO DANG TIGHT!  What is the stupid applied i-cord doing?!?!?!  So I had to undo all of that AGAIN!  It is now taking a time out in my knitting basket.

My question to you (please comment and tell me what you think) is what should I do?  I liked the look of the applied i-cord but it is being a pain in my butt.  Do I i-cord in between each applied i-cord stitch (which would create a lot of holes I think).  Do I do my stretchy bindoff where instead of lifting the right stitch over the left stitch (after you have knit two) you knit back through them?  The sleeves were just garter stitch, should I do that for consistency?  Should I go back and undo a row of decreases to make up for the decreasyness of the bind-off?  Do I try something else?  Grrrr.  Unfortunately I am too tired to take a picture to show you all what it is exactly I am talking about.

Thoughts?  Ideas?  Suggestions?

(I was going to share with you the fun new yarn I spun, but because of this drama that will have to wait for another day)

Thank you!