free patterns

Brioche Made Simple Reprise

~ Kristin Tolle ~ Leave a comment

I LOVE brioche—both the stitch and the bread. I fell in love with fabric the moment I found it in a Vogue Knitting pattern from the Winter 1998/1999 edition. It was pattern #10 which sadly is not online, so I’m happy to have the printed magazine.

Brioche was not new 20+ years ago when I discovered it. It’s been around for centuries and is believed to have originated in the Netherlands for fisherman sweaters. Think Aran Isle only Dutch.

In the hunt to find projects to use up odds and ends of my stash, I looked back at a previous post I made on simplified brioche knitting, but many of the links no longer worked, so this is an update to that post as well as a free scarf pattern in case you want to try it for creating stretchy, beautiful knitwear.

Brioche is almost as simple as garter because it is  the same and knitted both directions. And brioche is far stretchier than a standard rib. This means that it will stretch farther sideways than rib patterns. Which makes it great for a horizontal piece, but not good for a vertical one. I learned this the hard way.

As you know, there are loads of Brioche patterns, but few stand out as good references. The good ones use standard knitting terminology instead of BRKs, BRPs, etc. I call these the “brioche without tears” patterns.

Simple Brioche Instructions

In single color, flat brioche, all rows are the same—no matter which way the work is facing. Only the setup and bind off rows are different.

Across any even number of stitches:

  • Setup Row: (prep for pattern rows) *K1, yarnover (yo), slip 1 purlwise; repeat from * to end of row
  • Pattern Rows: (repeated row) *K2tog (the slip 1 and yo of the previous row), yo, sl1; repeat from * to end of row
  • Final Row: (prep for bind off) *K2tog P1* repeat across
  • Cast off: in pattern (K1, P1)

Below is a pattern for a super quick knit scarf that I call 12 Feet of Love. It’s knit in a discontinued yarn called Kitten, by Reynolds, a wool-blend that creates a slightly fuzzy, bumpy fabric that was popular in the 80’s.

  • I’m tall, but this scarf is taller
  • Touches the ground if not wrapped

12 Feet of Love Scarf

PDF InstructionsDownload

This pattern can be any length, width or use any yarn you desire. This makes it a great stash buster project.

Length: As the title suggests, the project I knit was 12 feet including fringe. You can stop at your desired length.

Width: I you want a wider scarf; you can make it wider simply add pairs of (2) stitches until it is the desired width.

Yarn: I used Aran, but this pattern works for any yarn weight. If you use a thinner yarn, add more pairs of stitches, a thicker yarn will require a pair or two less. The best thing is to knit a gauge swatch with the whatever yarn you plan to use.

Supplies:

  • Needles: Size 9 or whatever gives you the appropriate or preferred gauge.
  • Yarn: I used 600-700 yards of Aran weight
  • Darning needle to weave in ends.

Directions:

  • Cast on 16 stitches.
  • Start setup row: *K1, yarnover (yo), slip 1 purlwise; repeat from * to end of row
  • Next row and every row after: *K2tog (the slip 1 and yo of the previous row), yo, sl1; repeat from * to end of row
  • When the scarf is the desired length, do bind off prep row: P1, K2tog across
  • Bind off 16 remaining stitches
  • Weave in ends
  • If desired, add fringe and trim to preferred length

What’s Next?

I hope the reference is useful for you. I’ll probably expand it to include more and more “conversions” as more as more simple brioche patterns (once again) are made available.

My next big thing is two-color brioche and it turns out that knitting brioche in the round is even easier than two-color brioche flat. Below are a pattern and a video to help without a BRK or BRP in sight!

Pattern: Joann’s two-color cowl

Two-color brioche cowl video tutorial: Milk Shed: Easy two color cowl video (knits and purls only): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRt0i1dQfJc

I’ll let you know how it turns out!

Call to Action!!!

If you know of other brioche patterns using standard knitting terms, I’m collecting them, so please share!

A Hat for Gray Days

~ Kristin Tolle ~ Leave a comment
  • Gray and black Ribbed hat

It’s generally gray in the Pacific Northwest in the winter. Often the outdoors can inspire your color scheme to match.

This winter has seemed particularly dark due to a heavy flu and cold season in the region. What better to ward off illness than to knit and wear warm hats!

I started this hat without a pattern—I just wanted a black and gray striped hat. At first I thought of doing a jogless horizontal stripe, a pattern I picked up at KnitFit from designer Lisa Ellis. Instead of starting off that way, I decided I wanted a larger ribbed edge and liked the idea of doing it in two colors. But when I’d finished the ribbing, I thought, ‘Why not keep on going?’

I’m sharing the recipe right away, since I usually put it off and don’t do it. I’m trying to be a “finisher” this year, even in my pattern writing.

Following other DK patterns, I started by casting on 80, then 88, but both seemed small even for my small-sized head. I’m guessing the extra bulk comes from holding two yarns together. In the end I landed on 100 for a medium size adult hat. For a bigger or smaller size, I suggest adding or removing eight stitches (pattern can be any multiple of four).

The goal was to create a warmer hat and this design achieves it because the carried yarn creates a textured heat holding layer inside.

  • Tassel
  • Inside yarn carry
  • Warm head

Contrasting Colored Ribbed Hat

Gray Day Hat PatternDownload

This pattern should work well for any DK yarn—or for whatever meets the stated gauge. If you use wool, as I did (Patons North America Classic Wool DK Superwash), I recommend superwash and high contrast colors, with the lighter/brighter shade for the knit stitches and the darker/dimmer color for the purls.

Glossary:

  • MC – Main color
  • AC – alternate color
  • PM – place marker
  • SM – slip marker
  • DK – double knit weight yarn
  • K2P2 – Knit 2, purl 2
  • P2K2 – Purl 2 knit 2
  • P2Tog – Purl two together
  • K2Tog – Knit two together
  • CO – cast on

Gauge: 21 stitches and 14 rows over 4 inches

Needles: Size 5 circulars (16”), size 5, 4 and 3 double points for crown; medium (G) crochet hook (optional)

Yarn: 150 yards MC yarn; 100 yards AC yarn in DK weight

Recipe:

CO 100 sts with MC (darker) yarn and PM.

Row 1: With MC only P2K2 the first round being careful not to twist

**NOTE**: Row 1 is different from all the other rows switching purls for knits and knits for purls in order to prevent the purl bumps from the MC/AC color showing on the outside of the hat. But you need to do a rib–even on the all MC row to prevent the hat brim from curling.

Rows 2 through 44 (or until piece measures 6.5 inches): holding MC yarn in back, K2 with AC, place AC yarn in back and P2 with MC. Repeat these K2P2 in alternating colors until you reach the marker and SM.

Row 45: K2, P2, K2 in color. P2Tog. Repeat until you reach the marker and SM

Switch to size 5 double point needles on next round.

Rows 46-47: follow color pattern, Knitting the AC knits and purling the MCs purls.

Row 48: in color pattern, K2, P2Tog twice, K2P1. Repeat until you reach the marker and SM

Rows 49 and 50: K2P1 in color pattern

Row 51: K2tog P2, K2P1 twice in color pattern. Repeat until you reach the end and SM

Row 52 and 53: follow color pattern

Row 54: K1P1, K2Tog, P1, K2tog, P1. Repeat until you reach the end and SM

Rows 55 and 56: K1P1 in color pattern (50 stitches)

Switch to size 4 double point needles on next round.

Row 57: K1, P1, P2tog (with MC). Repeat until to end.

Row 58: K1P2 to end

Row 59: K1P2Tog to end

Switch to size 3 double point needles on next round.

Row 60: K1P1 to end

Cut yarn with approx. 18” of each color remaining.

Run the MC yarn through all of the stitches and pull tight and secure. Feed through the center of the hat crown (to the outside).

Finishing: using a medium crochet create a 10-stitch chain and pull the yarn through to secure. Clip 5 four-inch pieces of each color pulling them through the last stitch in the chain. Wrap an additional main color around these pieces to create a tassel and trim to desired length. Weave in ends.

Dr. Seuss Capelet Pattern

~ Kristin Tolle ~ 2 Comments

This pattern is based on my Quickie Caplet pattern. As with that one, it holds multiple yarns together and uses big needles to make it a quick, fun knit. The one pictured above is the Long length. All versions have three “furry” rows, but in the medium length version, they are narrower and the collar is slightly shorter.

Why Dr. Seuss? Well, you can dress it up a bit by bunching it up over a frock and you might resemble Seuss’s character Foona-Lagoona Baboona. If you wear it poncho style over casual clothes or a jacket you’ll fall somewhere between the Dr. Seuss birds the Goo-Goo Goose or a Pelf.

Enjoy!

Downloadable pattern: 2017-dr-suess-caplet

Needles: a 32” circular needle–size 17.

Yarns: 2 skeins Red Heart Super Saver and 3 skeins Red Heart Fur Sure

Gauge: stockinette holding two strands of Red Heart super saver together 7 sts over 4 inches

Fuzzy rounds are created by holding one strand of Fur Sure together with one strand of Super Saver. Plain rounds are created by hold two strands of the Super Saver alone.

Pattern: Medium length (Long length)

Cast on 72 (88) stitches holding one strand fur yarn and one strand worsted plain yarn together. Join yarn to knit in the round, placing a marker.

Continue in the round using a K2P2 rib (all fuzzy rows are ribbed) for 6 (8) rows. Decrease one stitch at marker each row (on fuzzy rows only) to hide reductions.

Row 7 (9) drop Fur Sure and pick up another strand of smooth yarn (two smooth yarn strands held together. Knit in stockinette for 6 (8) more rounds even (do not decrease on smooth/stockinette rows to hide decreases).

Repeat rows 1-12 (1-16)

Row 13 (17) drop one strand of smooth yarn and pick up the furry strand. Rib for 6 (8 rows). Decrease one stitch at the marker each row.

Row 19 (25) Drop furry yarn and holding two smooth yarns together knit in K2P2 rib for 10 (14 rows). Do not reduce.

Row 29 (39) Cast off loosely

© Kristin Tolle. This pattern is freely available and without restriction to all would be capelet makers and Dr. Seuss lovers!

Where’d It Go? or Seller’s Remorse

~ Kristin Tolle ~ 2 Comments

My stash is prodigious. It’s mine and my grandmothers with a few of my friends’ grandmothers thrown in. There was a time, in the not too distant past, that knitting was a dying art. So when people saw me knitting, I would get given all the spare yarn that hadn’t been used up.

Yarn Collage
Just a fraction of the yarn from my stash

One Fall when I was on sabbatical I took to photographing and cataloguing all of my yarn—at least the small portion of it that remained after I donated most of it to charity—about 75%. But don’t let that fool you, I’ve still got an immense supply which grows every time I go to a knitting event—much faster, I might add, than I can possibly knit it with a very busy full time job that never seems to end at the end of the day.

To second the Ravelry post on January 6th by MaryHeatherB “Tip: 3 Things to do on Ravelry in the New Year”, Tip #1 is to catalogue your yarn on Ravelry. I highly recommend that you go through the exercise. Now I tend to shop at home because I know what I have and in what quantities. And now that you can “slurp” in photos you won’t have the added hassle I had in photographing 200 yarns.

I’ve been knitting things for the women members of my team and trying to pick up a few new skills along the way leveraging free patterns on Ravelry. One didn’t go so well. I attempted to give Aran Cabled Shrug in Kaya Wool by Crystal Palace Yarns a more modern look by switching the ribbing to garter and adding increases to compensate for the lack of give. I love how it came out, but feel it is a bit too misshapen to give away—not to mention way too small for its intended receiver. I’m still trying to work out a closure for it that helps hide the underarm “bump”.

Watson Shrug

Next I turned to a different project that I ended up falling in love with—a Bias Scarf by Shelby Dyas. It came out so pretty (and heavy) that it hard to part with. I bought some Lion Brand Homeland in Bryce Canyon and paired it with an unidentifiable yarn in my grandma’s stash—a slick, nylon, ribbon yarn in burgundy by Malibu Mark which reminds me a lot of Anne Blatt’s Antique.

Ribbon yarn of unknown origin
Close up of Sushma’s scarf

That’s when I got the idea to make a shrug from the pattern—a square you can wear. If it were wider it would be perfect and I knew of just the yarn to pair up with a bit more ribbon yarn—but this time of KNOWN origin, Lane Borgosesia Diamante in a variegated black-taupe-white and/or solid black. On the hunt I went and I came up empty. I searched by stash and it was not to be found. Where was it? I sold it!  And no doubt now these two beauties are probably knitted up, possibly together, in some gorgeous creation.

And there was this VERY old Berroco Glace variegated cotton-blend ribbon yarn which barely deviated from white in the palest of pinks and blue. I was purusing Ravelry, as I often do on weekends, and found a great summer top to use it up with, feeling so proud to be shopping in my stash. Firstly, I couldn’t find it in my stash, but I was certain I still had it so I went to my storage rack… Gone! Well, it wasn’t my color, I rationalized. Er, um. *sigh*

I’m happy to have them get used and there was no telling when I would have used them, so it’s for the best, of that I’m certain. What it did get me to do was “rethink” my trade or sale portion of my stash on Ravelry.

Brioche in Plain English

~ Kristin Tolle ~ 1 Comment

I’ve struggled with two color brioche and for someone that has been knitting brioche for many decades without a hitch—both in the round and flat—this is a huge source of frustration. I decided to take multiple classes until I could master it. The upshot is that this approach did not work, so I hope to save you the trouble and expense and hopefully a lot of angst.

The problem isn’t you, it’s the lingo.

Recently there has been a largely unnecessary adaptation from standard knitting terms which might sell books and patterns, but stymies people that just want to do these techniques without having to learn new terminology, take classes or buy books.

*deep sigh*

I was bewildered when a member of my guild said that Nancy Marchant “had to invent new terms” because there weren’t any, the only thing I could think would prompt such a remark is that she wasn’t aware that brioche knitting is technique had been around for centuries. And while vintage patterns use multiple methods of description (the rational for creating a new “standard”) each of these ways is easily more comprehensible to me, but most lack the colorwork I want to learn.

At no small expense I flew to Colorado for YarnFest to take my second (and third) class on the topic from Mercedes Tarasovich-Clark (the first was 4 years ago from Nancy herself at Vogue Knitting in Seattle). Once again I failed to learn the technique.

Admittedly part of the problem was I sat next to a tardy 20-something “troll” who had taken the class before and poured scorn in a loud whisper on other attendees who failed to grasp it. She had lots of fodder since that happened to be the majority of the ladies there—all of whom were knitting veterans with decades of experience looking for a way to bridge this unnecessary gap. Needless to say, I left early just to get away from her competitive, obnoxious behavior.

I’m not the type to give up, especially when it is something I know well, like brioche. So I immediately turned to the web to uncover a solution—right there in my hotel room—knowing I was going to have the follow on course the next day and would need to know how to do two color to move onto increases and decreases.

If you’ve also struggled, I want you to know that I’ve discovered that others are still willing to use the standard terminology to teach these fairly basic techniques and give you equally good results—at no charge.

That evening I came across a YouTube video by a lovely young lady, Stephanie of Milk Shed, and learned, in ten minutes, exactly what the first 2 hours of the class covered. And the lingo? Good old fashioned slips with yarnovers and knit/purl to togethers. There is also a written tutorial that comes with a free cowl pattern. Even Jo-Ann’s is getting into the plain English act with their online tutorials—not a BRK (brioche knit) or a BRP (brioche purl) in sight!

And not to worry if you want to knit a newer pattern. I found that once I mastered the techniques it was fairly straight forward to work in reverse. All you have to do is to map normal knitting terms onto the newer patterns.

*deep happy breath*