I hate admitting defeat for anything. I loathe it but I just rage quit my test swatch of the Bixbite Shawl because I can’t figure out the brioche. Never done brioche before so yeah, that’s not helping anything here.
What project kicked your ass?
I’m embarrassed to admit it, but after… 12? 14? years of knitting, I was recently finally ready to make an adult-sized sweater. Picked out a simple design by Regina Moesmer (sp?), and after reading through the pattern, decided I wanted a folded, double layer collar instead of the simple ribbed collar in the pattern. I’ve done that on hats, how hard could it be? Couldn’t find the instructions for how I’ve done it in the past, so found new instructions and got to work. Seemed to go well, reduced to the number of stitches I needed to start the main body of the sweater. Tried to get it over my head, and it had all of the stretch of a 2 inch steel cable. Frogged and tried again. Same thing. Frogged and tried with bigger needles. Same thing. Frogged and tried with somewhat different instructions. Same thing.
Wtf is happening? I have hats that use the same technique, that will stretch to over twice their original circumference! What am I doing differently to make this fail so badly? The sweater has been in time out for months now, while I resign myself to doing the original k1p1 collar. 😡
As someone who has been considering trying to learn brioche for my next knitting project this will probably also be me in a few weeks. I have the rispen hat and cowl pattern that I bought years ago and have been too intimidated to start it. Please share if you find any methods or resources that work for you!
Stopping back to say I learned it. It was the Stephen West that did it. I paid for and downloaded his Brioche Soundwaves pattern and used it as my learning tool. It worked.
Now I’m just practicing, still using Soundwaves.
I have two sleeves to finish on my Dreyma and then it’s on to Bixbite.
Good luck to you!
