So the press on brioche stitch is that it’s high-loft and
reversible. Nancy Marchant is the acknowledged expert and patterns often use
her terminology. Her three books are Knitting Brioche and Knitting Fresh
Brioche, and Knitting Brioche Lace. The conventional wisdom about brioche is,
use a smaller needle than you usually do so, with fingering weight, use a size
2 instead of a size 3.
The other thing, that I found out from this site is, you
need 50% more yarn. So I can usually get a jumper out of 6 skeins of Palette,
but I probably want 9 skeins for brioche.
http://knitbettersocks.blogspot.com/2012/01/brioche-fishermans-rib.html
The blogger also says don’t use modern wools like superwash
or acrylic. You want hackling to keep the fabric from stretching all out of shape
after the first wear/wash cycle. That means you don’t want to use cotton,
linen, or silk either.
The site implies that brioche is a French term for what
other knitting traditions call Fisherman’s Rib or Shaker Rib. It’s not. When
you look at the descriptions on separate sites, they are different.
Some descriptions aren’t very good. They start out talking
about a yarn over but then it starts to sound like the “funny double stitch” of
a German short row. Here’s a video that shows that it really is a yarn over.
Although the audio is softer than I like, it has the best
demonstration (about minute 2:22) of how to do a brioche knit round. I made
lots of mistakes because I was trying to do the K2TOG, bringing the yarn
between the needle holding the two stitches and the previous purlwise slip. You
have to take it around that slip stitch to create the YO that maintains your
stitch count.
Then there’s two-color brioche. It's great for pieces worked
in the round; if you are working on the flat you need the selvage shown in the
other video and you have to slip the yarn back and forth.
For two-color brioche, written instructions in the Marchant
terminology weren't enough for me; I needed to see those fingers moving. This
video adds in the second color about minute 1:10.
After that is where my problem with the brkyo started.
How to prevent problems.
1 Brioche needs
a stitch count that is a multiple of 3. If you are going to do your normal rib
at hem or sock cuff, of course you need multiples of 2 or 4. Choose a stitch
count that is a multiple of both 3 and 4, and you’ll be fine when you switch
over to brioche. If you don’t have multiples of 3, you will have odd stitches
at the ends of rows (working in the flat) or your rounds won’t start in the same
place every time, messing up your counts.
On the other
hand, one reason for a rib hem is to keep the bottom of your jumper or the top
of your sock leg from curling. Brioche doesn’t have this problem. For a
nice-looking start, cable your stitches on.
2. If you are
using DPs, such as for socks, be very careful at the end of the needle on a
knit round with that last YO. It tends to drop off. If you get to the end
of a needle on a purl round and you have a single stitch but no YO to knit TOG
with it, you dropped the YO from the previous knit round. Find it (if you are
working two-color it will be in the other color) and put it back up on your
working needle, and then go on from there.
3. Putting your
work down. Whether it’s overnight or just while you pour the boiling water over
your teabag (yuck, I use loose tea, especially after the plastic teabag row), you
may come back and not know what to do next.
a. You are in the middle of a round. What
is your next stitch? Look backward. If your 3-stitch sets have 2 in one color, that
is the color to keep using.
b. Do you slip next or 2TOG next? If your
last stitch was a slip, of course now you do a 2TOG.
c. You are at the end of a round. Look at
the last two stitches you did. If one is the YO at the end of a knit round and
the other is a slipped stitch, then you just finished a knit round and you start a purl round. If your last stitch is a TOG, it is a P2TOG and you start a knit round. And of course, check out which color dominates in the round
you just finished and switch to the other color for the new round.
4. Working two-color
in the round, you need to wrap stitches at the end of a round. If you don't,
you wind up with little holes. Sure, you can patch them shut, but in that case,
why bother knitting in the round? So when you get ready to start a purl round,
bring its dominant color over top of the YO at the end of the knit round, bring
your purl color to the front, and work on. When you get to the start of a knit
round, snug the purl color up hard, bring the knit color over top of it, and work
on.
The thing I haven’t learned is how to fix a dropped stitch.
A lot of the brioche patterns out there are shawls and
scarves, understandably because the loft makes them so warm. Here’s a very fancy
one.
I started with socks. I worked my usual 48-stitch round. You
can do a tube sock if you continue working in the round for the length of your
leg and foot. Put a tape measure under your foot with the zero marker just
before your toes, then run it down the sole of your foot and up the back of
your leg to where you want the top of the sock to go. Then work an inch of
brioche, count the number of rounds, and multiply by the inches the sock needs
to be long for your foot. At the end, bind off one color and work a toe.
Of course, it’s also easy to work toe-up and then just stop
when it’s long enough.
If you want to work a heel, when you cast on, put ¼ of the
stitches on needle 1, ½ of them on needle 2, and ¼ on needle three. Work 55
rounds in brioche ending with a knit round. Now drop one of the colors and turn
your heel. As you go, catch in the color you are not using so that there’s not
a floatie. This is like Carole Anderson’s heel-turning, but it binds off only 3
stitches per side to maintain your 3-count that you need for brioche.
On needle 1: K3, K2TOG, K1, turn, SL1, P4.
On needle 3: P3, P2TOG, P1, turn, SL1, K4.
Back on needle 1: K5, K2TOG, K1, turn, SL1, purl to end of
needle.
On needle 3: P5, P2TOG, P1, turn, SL1, knit to end of
needle.
Needle 1: K7, K2TOG, K1, turn, SL1, purl to end of needle.
Needle 3: P7, P2TOG, P1, purl to end of needle, turn, knit
to end of needle.
There are now 9 stitches each on needles 1 and 3.
Now start again in brioche with a purl round, for 45 rounds
and bind off one color. Work the toe in the other color using Carole Anderson’s wedge-toe method with the Kitchener stitch.
So here is my first brioche sock with a heel, a wedge toe, and all the warts on. The next one will go better, I'm sure of it.
If you are a fan of short rows, you may want to turn your heel in short rows. The difference is that the foot of the sock will be the same size as the leg and less snug than when you do 2TOGs. OTOH, that will let you put a sock liner under the sock. Brioche socks are already warmer than single-layer socks and so the liner idea may be great if you're out in sub-freezing temperatures a lot.
One of the things Marchant's book discusses is how to shape
your work. Interweave has a free 21-page download that includes this
information. This page will get it for you. Getting the download doesn't
automatically sign you up for future emails, but there's a separate way to do
that on the same page.
I came late to brioche because I was having so much fun with
other things but I can see its benefits as well as its beauty, and that meant I
had to include it on this blog.
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