Neck Panel as a Start.

 

That is how I usually started, the neck line. This neck pattern beginns with 1Purl and 1 Knit flowing down until the desired length and then start with the shoulder panel. The 4 separations of shoulders, back and front panels are each by 9 stitches; 1Purl and 1 Knit pattern as you can see above. I keep these separation panels until my desired lenght of the pullover/dress as those give nice structure to the whole look.