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September 22, 2018

From Both of Us — Tip of the Week: Building a Better Brioche!

Filed under: Updates — Both Sisters @ 2:39 pm

This is an excerpt from our Ravelry Group Tip of the Week

September 22 Tip of the Month 2  — Building Better Brioche

The Rainey Sisters launched our new pattern about a week ago.  Part of the process was to divvy up the pockets – who would write up which pocket.  Susan was assigned “brioche” because she had more experience knitting brioche.  The following tip derives from her experience writing up the brioche pocket for Pickpocket:

From Susan:
Most everyone who writes directions for brioche follows the same method outlined by the great Nancy Marchant.  She is the reigning queen of brioche, and rightfully so.  However, in the course of my swatching, I did discover a flaw in the standard method for knitting 2-color flat brioche:

You can see the issue in the following pictures.  I checked out the directions written by several well-known brioche designers and found that they all did it the same way – shown as standard below:

In standard 2-color flat brioche, you leave the working yarn of the contrast color (CC) where it falls when you drop it to slip the edge st(s), then turn to work the next row with the main color (MC).  This is to the RS of the work.  It will then be in the proper position when needed again – after the MC portion of the row is completed.

The problem is, the brioche column is incomplete, resulting in a narrower column with distorted, half-formed sts.

By moving the yarn to the WS of the work when the CC portion of the row is done (before slipping the edge st-s), the CC purl column is completed.  It becomes a fully formed brioche purl column.

The MC row is worked, and then you slide the sts back to work the CC row.  At this point, the CC yarn needs to be moved into proper position (to the right side).  If you are on the RS and need to work a brioche purl, bring the yarn forward; if you are on the WS and need to work a brioche knit, move the yarn to the back.

If you are not a brioche knitter, this won’t make any sense!!  But, if you take up brioche knitting, try swatching both ways and see what you think!  Another tool for the toolbox…

PS from Susan — I sure enjoyed my 15 minutes of fame in the Kristy Glass spotlight!!  Thank you for watching and commenting.  It really means a lot! 🙂

1 Comment »

  1. Brilliant! This is the kind of thing that I notice when i’m wearing the item and then am driven crazy by it! (but wouldn’t know how to fix) Thank you!

    Comment by annie — September 22, 2018 @ 3:19 pm

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