The Knitting Fiend

While waiting for the yarn for Jim’s sweater to arrive, I decided to swatch some Brioche stitches.

Brioche rib is fairly popular right now, and fairly easy to work. However, I’ve noticed a number of questions in my referal logs. People evidently want to know know to “k2 tog” in this particular stitch. I took photos below to show how. They are worked the same in both “Fluffy Brioche” and “Brioche Rib”.

As long as I was doing this, I went whole hog and also knit “Double Brioche”. It’s a bit of a pain in the neck, but makes a nice fabric. When I was a student in France, one of the teaching assistants wore a really thick textured sweater in this stitch and I always wanted that sweater.

All three stitches have interesting surfaces, which look great in this mercerized cotton, but unfortunately do not photograph well! The shine on the cotton is scattering light, and I’m finding it difficult to capture the surface. I’d reknit the swatch, but, heck, this is a blog, and not a book. I encourage you to try them and see how they look. (Note: I added 2 stitches of garter stitch on each edge of the swatch. So, if you want to imitate me, add a “k2″ at the beginning and end of every row when you swatch. I suspect it’s not technically necessary, but I make this a habit when I swatch.)

Here are directions for the three Brioche stitches.

Fluffy Brioche (Bottom of Swatch).¹
Even number of stitches. Odd rows are the wrong side. I placed a safety pin on the right side to keep track for the first few rows.

1. Row 1: * Yo, sl 1 wyib, k1; repeat from * (Note: When you slip stitches, insert the tip of the needle as to purl. See details below. Also, notice the yo slants diagonally over the slipped stitch.)
2. Row 2: * K1, k2 tog; repeat from *. (Note: when knitting 2 together, knit the slip stitch together with the yarn over from the row below. See notes and figure below. )
3. Row 3: K1, * yo, sl 1 wyib, k1; repeat from *, end k1.
4. Row 4: K2, * k2 tog, k1; repeat from *
5. Repeat rows 1-4.

Brioche Stitch aka Brioche Rib. (Middle of swatch.)²
Even number of stitches. Both sides look the same.

1. Row 1: * Yo, sl 1, k1; repeat from *. (Note: When you slip stitches, insert the tip of the needle as to purl. See details below. Also, notice the yo slants diagonally over the slipped stitch.)
2. Row 2: * Yo, sl 1, k2 tog, repeat from *. (Note, when you k2 together, you will slip knit the slipped stitch and the yarn over of the previous row. See the details below.)
3. Repeat Row 2.

Double Brioche Rib (Top of Swatch)³
Even number of stitches. Odd rows are the wrong side. I placed a safety pin on the right side to keep track for the first few rows. (Note, this stitch looks much, much better in real life than in this picture. It’s also a bit more difficult than the other two. I encourage you to swatch it.)

Note that Row 3 is worked exactly like the repeated row of Brioche stitch. When knitting the swatch, I stopped knitting Brioche rib when after a wrong side row, and began on Row 4. That way I skipped the prep rows.

1. Row 1: * K1, yo, sl 1; repeat from *.
2. Row 2: K1, * sl the yo, k2; repeat from *, end sl the yo, k1.
3. Row 3: * Yo, sl 1, k2 tog ; repeat from *. (Note when you k2 tog, knit the yo and the next stitch.)
4. Row 4: * K2, sl the yo; repeat from *;
5. Row 5: K2 tog, yo, sl 1; repeat from * (Note when k2 tog, knit the yo and the next stitch.)
6. Row 6: K1, *sl the yo, k2; repeat from *, end sl the yo, k1.
7. Repeat rows 3-6.

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Details:

I photos when working “fluffy Brioche”. The sequence above shows the “yo, slip, k1″ sequence in the first row of Fluffy Brioche or Brioche Rib. Notice Row 1 of both patterns are identical.

When slipping stitches, insert the tip as though you are going to purl, as shown in the photo above and to the left. Notice, the yarn strand has been already been looped under and then over the right hand needle; that’s the yo worked just before slipping stitch. I left the yarn dangling behind the work when I picked up the camera to take a picture.

Above and to the right, I have inserted the tip of the right hand needle to knit the next stitch, then took the picture. (Remember when I discused yarn over’s before? There are three steps involved in working a knit stitch. The 2nd step happens to be a yarn over — you bring the yarn under then over the needle before drawing it through the stitch. That’s not the “official yarn over” they are talking about when they say “yo” in directions to work a stitch pattern.)

Notice the diagonal slanting strand going over the slipped stitch; that’s the official yarn over I worked before inserting the needle to work the knit stitch. The yarn strand for the “yo” begins to the right of the slipped stitch ends to the left. Note also, I am knitting the prep row of “fluffy brioche, so I knit through one stitch only.

To the left, I am knitting 2 together on Row 2 of fluffy brioche. Notice I am knitting through a yarn over and a stitch. If you pick the correct yarn over, this will be fairly easy to do because the yarn over will slant over the stitch you are knitting into.

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End Notes:
1. p. 220 Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns, Walker.
2. p. 45 “A Treasury of Knitting Patterns”, Walker.
3. P 157 “A Treasury of Knitting Patterns”, Walker.

Mary Ann Raglan

I set up the tripod and snapped a photo of myself. Taking self photos is tricky. I took a whole bunch. I thought my face looked hideous, the light was glinting off my eyeglasses and. . . So, through the wonders of technology, my little bolero is floating on air!

Anyway, I fiddled with the program to create the pattern for a Mary Ann Raglan. The changes are:

• I reduced the ease because I think when worn this short, it need to be tighter. If you pick your size, this will automatically have less ease than I would recommend for a full length raglan.
• Since I anticipate some women will want to wear this really tight, sort of like a boob holder, I added a smaller woman’s size. The sizes go from 2-22. If you are small and want to wear this tight, pick a smaller size! (Or customize.)
• I got rid of the men’s sizes. If you are a man and you want to wear this, you’ll have to deal with that.
• I got rid of the kid’s sizes. I figure size 2 should cover many teens anyway.

Of course, you can still use your own yarn, needles and gauge. You can create your pattern by clicking: Mary Ann Raglan.

This was my first shot at a top down raglan cardigan, and it worked pretty well. I’ll be knitting Jim a full sized men’s cardigan next. Anyone who has knit a top down raglan knows all the difficult math happens when shaping the neck and increasing for the body. After that, it’s a snap. So, fleshing out the code for the full size top down raglan should be pretty simple.

You’ll see that project next week, because I ordered the yarn. Once again, I’ll be using Sinfonia cotton double stranded.

I finished my version of Christine’s “Lelah Top”. Christine is a design genius for coming up with such a simple, elegant, yet sexy idea!

I’m incapable of following instructions, so did make these changes:

• Mine is knit from the top down; Christine’s is knit bottom up. This means my directions for making the casing are a bit different. (I’ll post more tomorrow for anyone who wants to knit top down. The only advantages to knitting top down are you can wait to decide which lace pattern to use and you can try the top on and decide when the bottom is long enough as you knit. )
• I substituted Vine Lace for the Horseshoe lace in the original. I posted the directions for the vine lace a few days ago.
• I decreased the number of stitches 5% below the bust to get a slimmer fit through the body.
• I used Sinfonia mercerized cotton in ivory knit with a strand of gold tone Omega nylon. (Both available at Hobby Lobby.) This sort of glitters! I used a little over two tubes of the gold tone yarn, and less than two skeins of the cotton.
• I used gold cord to tie mine closed under the bust.

I loved the original; I love mine. I hope Jim loves it when he sees it too.

Maybe I’ll strike a sexy pose on top of the picnic table to greet him when he comes home!