The good thing about teaching a friend to knit is that it forces me to try techniques I haven’t done in a while, or I haven’t done at all.
Case in point, Brioche knitting. Oh, great news, although by now the sale may be over. Craftsy is no longer part of NBC or whatever conglomerate bought them. No, they haven’t been able to film new classes, but they need to rebuild the base. So they offered Premium membership for $3 instead of $80 a year. You bet I signed up. I also gave myself a reminder for a year from now, in case I decide not to renew.
This is a wonderful baby alpaca I bought in Peru, left over from a sweater. Nice and soft and cozy and not easy to knit brioche with at all!!!
It does make a lovely warm hat. Sorry about the blurry image, I’m not great at selfies.
The hat wasn’t intended for me, I sent it to my friend who moved to Virginia and desperately need cold weather gear. As you can see, she is thrilled!
The hats didn’t end there. My grandson saw me knitting and asked when would I knit something for him. For him means for him and his big brother. So I pulled out the wonderful Merino I bought in New Zealand. I had already made Joel a hat, there was enough yarn left for two more. Now, this yarn is great for brioche. Now you can see how wonderful this stitch is.
First hat done! The yarn is thicker, the heads are a little smaller. So I got this one done in a day.
And the second one done early the next day before I drove down to see them. Yes, working that fast means a few mistakes, but they will never notice them. And at this point, neither will I.
They were outside playing with their neighbors, so although they are excited, it was momentary.
Then they got goofy, which is exactly what little boys should do. They will be in the mountains this weekend, which is why I was in such a rush to finish these hats.
There is a wonderful brioche shawl pattern. One by One shawl, go take a look. Anyway, I want to use these brioche patterns in a sweater. So I knit a sample, guage swatch. Here it is right off the needles.
Here it is blocked, much neater.
Using Ann Budds’ top down sweater book, I am attempting to create a sweater. I am creating a circular yoke and am speaking this, so it will be a cardigan.
I got this far, but, I frogged it all. The neck opening is too big, it’s just not right. So I’ve started over, smaller size. Another huge issue here is that every 2.5″ I need to do a row of massive increases. So that must happen in one of the garter rows between patterns, that means I need to be very judicious with the patterns. I can’t use the much larger patterns until I get to the body of the sweater. There is a reason why it is such a pleasure to buy a well designed sweater pattern. Although, there is something wonderful about designing on my own, even if it means a lot of frogging and changing as I go. Oh, and the designer is following me on IG, she wants a sweater too, not just a shawl.
Leah