I attended a great workshop just a few weeks ago at our Wild About Wool HQ here in Slaithwaite, Yorkshire. The tutor was Gwen Wagner-Adair, another Yorkshire knitting designer who has got a wealth of knitting knowledge and loads of knitting patterns under her belt. She taught us the basics of Brioche starting with a simple 1 coloured swatch and working up to a 2 coloured scarf with increases and decreases thrown in. 

I made mistakes, not properly reading the pattern correctly (I always do this, always make assumptions that are not there). I found trying to pull back my mistakes and rectifying them there and then was futile, I was getting my knitting into a bigger mess. 

So what did I do when I got home, Yes ! I pulled it all back and started again. This time concentrating, this time I wanted to understand what I was doing so that the unpicking and rectifying could be done. It took me nearly a week of pulling back, unpicking and a lot of swearing but I got to the end, I even found out that 2/3 rds of the way through I could knit Brioche without looking at the pattern and I was whizzing. Here is the beautiful scarf I completed! It's amazing ! 

So ever since then. I've been experimenting, reading , researching, swatching & knitting. I wanted to add a Brioche pattern into my portfolio and it needed to be EASY. I soon found out that knitting Brioche in the round was easier than in the flat and that 2 colored Brioche work actually helped you in the knitting process.  I think I've surpassed myself with my brief. Not only is it a lovely cowl, I think the wrong side of the work looks just as stunning.   I'll let you decide.

Brioche Cowl - is available in kit form currently

 

 

I had a bit of a craft room clear out and sort out last week as I was fed up of having to delve through carrier bags half full of wool, swatches and needles; work that I started but changed my mind, or work that had gone wrong part way through.  I found beautiful skeins that I had forgotten about and no end of odd needles. Felt so good to get this organised again. One of my WIP finds was this half-finished red lace shawl. Must have been about 5 or even 7 years ago when I knit this. I examined it and thought, yes the knitting was good, no errors, must have just got tired of knitting it. Well time to continue.

I rummaged through the bag to see if I could find any clues as to where I got the stitch pattern from , but no clues found, so I had to do a little reverse engineering (carefully unpicking a few rows and writing down the stitches I had unpicked).

Then I set to and finished the shawl, deciding near the end that it warranted a scalloped edging at both ends so that it wasn't just a piece of one lace pattern knit.

Today I'm sharing the pattern with you.

 

Yarn I used was Ice Yarns - Incas Alpaca (50% Alpaca, 35 Acrylic , 15% Merino Wool). I used it double. I'm left with nearly 4 balls of a 10 x 50gram (350m) ball pack. So somewhere between 2,200m - 2,500 metres of lace weight yarn was used in this project. If you use thicker yarn then you wouldn't need to work it double.

Needles used UK size 7, US size 7, 4.5mm 

 Cast on 115 stitches

Row 1 (RS): sl 1 , k2 *(k1, yo) twice, sl 1, k2tog, psso, k3, k3tog, yo, k1, yo; rep from * to last 4 sts, k4.

Row 2 and all even rows: sl 1, k2, p to last 3 sts, k3.

Row 3: sl 1 , k2, *k1, yo, k3, yo, sl 1 , k1, psso, k1, k2tog, yo, k3, yo; rep from * to last 4 sts, k4.

Row 5: sl 1, k2, * k1, yo, sl 1, k1, psso, k1, k2tog, yo, sl 1, k2tog, psso, yo, sl 1, k1, psso, k1, k2tog, yo; rep from * to last 4 sts, k4.

Row 7: sl 1, k2, *k1, yo, sl 1, k1, psso, k1, k2tog, yo; rep from * to last 4 sts, k4.

Row 9: As Row 7:

Row 10: As Row 2.

These 10 rows form the pattern, Repeat these 10 rows 30 times or until shawl is 120cm long.

Cast off

Edging (Work Two)

Cast on 115 stitches

Row 1 (RS): sl 1,k3 *yo, k4, sl 1, k2tog, psso, k4,yo,k1; rep to last 3 sts, k3

Row 2: sl 1, k2, p to last 3 sts, k3.

Repeat rows 1-2 another 9 times.

Cast off

Finishing

With right sides together sew each edging pieces to the cast on and cast off edges of the main shawl.

Block the shawl following the instructions on your ball band.

 

New In Store - Mandala knitting pattern and greeting cards