Knitting -- brioche pullover

OK who started a brioche pullover using the stitch counts from my original pullover, bottom up?

If you didn't, don't, first think about how brioche works. If you work bottom up, after you cast or cable on your stitches that fit your hips, and do say a round of seed stitch, the next thing you do is your brioche setup round. And you increase the size because this is a bulky, springy technique. 

But if you work top-down, you have a chance to customize the width of the body with a new technique I haven't shown you yet. 

Cable on for the neck, work however many rows of K1/P1 rib. Work one knit round for stabilization.

Now do your setup round. 

Now work brioche top down, doing increases so you have room for your chest and also to attach the sleeves. Meaning that this is a raglan piece. And then if you want, you can work decreases in the body below the armpits.

So I cabled on 104 stitches for the neck and worked 10 rounds in K1/P1, etc. The advantage of K1/P1 is that, in spite of the added stitches, every rib of a one-color brioche connects to a knit stitch in the neck. The added stitches are YOs, remember, and they get worked into the first purl row while new ones are added for use in the knit row. If you're working non-brioche raglan, you may have to finagle to get the increases to match up with the K2 of a K2/P2 neck rib.

At the end of my brioche setup round, I had 156 stitches. Divide in 4 and you have 39 stitches in each sleeve, the front and the back.

Normally with raglan you would work one round and then start increasing. Now let's think about working brioche. You work a brioche increase by knitting, adding a YO and then a knit into the same stitch, so you add two stitches not one.

In a raglan, you work 8 sets of increases, on each side of the sleeves and on each side of the body. In brioche, you increase by 16 stitches instead of 8 each time you increase. In brioche, work increases every other KNIT round, or the FOURTH round since the last increase.

So the sleeves will increase from 39 to 43--47--51--55--59--63--67--71--75--79. Stop increasing in the sleeves but increase one more time in the front and back for 83 stitches.

This comes to about 39 rounds and your last increase was, of course, in a knit round. Start that last purl round, and cast on 10 stitches (total 93 stitches in front and back, which is divisible by 3) at each armpit for the body while moving the 79 sleeve stitches onto holders. On the next knit round, do setup stitches at the underarms and then breeze brioche down to the hem. (But see decreases below.)

Now go back to your sleeves. Cast on 8 stitches and work that last purl round. On the following knit round, work the brioche setup on the cast-ons and then work four rounds (two brioche SETS). The last round you work will be a knit round. Stop SIX stitches before the end of the round or at the 3rd stitch with a wrap. Don't work this stitch. You'll need it as part of the decrease.

Work the first decrease at the end of the round you are on. Then you'll do 7 rounds ending with a purl round, and for the next knit round, work the first stitch and then do a decrease at the start of the round. Alternate between starting the 4th knit round with a decrease, and ending it with a decrease.

Let's go to the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWiw_m_98Zs

Notice that this is a FOUR STITCH decrease. YES, you can work a decrease at the start of a round and another at the end of the same round. This is going to create an obvious stair-step as you go down the sleeve. I didn't like the thought of that so I alternated every 4th knit round as I said above.

Also notice that line running between the decreases. That's the first or last stitch of the round, before or after you decrease.

You need to take out 40 stitches and the cuff will wind up as 47 stitches; work a total of 10 decreases. In worsted, my sleeve is normally 132 rounds before the cuff. With brioche, make sure the sleeve measures the right length rather than having the right number of rounds.

I admit it, the first time I tried to do this decrease I ended up out of step in my brioche. So I unraveled back to the last knit round and reworked it. It's called "learning".

Also I made enough mistakes in other places that I had to unravel some but not all of the rows, and I learned to pick up a row. I found that picking up at a knit row was easier for me. You have to make sure to pick up the YOs with the stitch that they go with. In a knit row, these are in front and then you dip the needle to the back to pick up the singleton. But I have managed to pick up purl rows to avoid too much unraveling. Just work slowly when you pick up, and be obsessive about picking up the YOs.

If you work a brioche pullover for a guy with big shoulders and snake hips, you might want to work decreases on the body under the armpits. Make sure you change from knit to purl rounds and vice versa in the middle of the back. Then work symmetrical decreases directly under the cast-ons at the armpits. 

Do one set of decreases, then work a number of rows. Now let your boyfriend try it on. Decreasing below the armpits might make the hem too narrow to go over those broad shoulders. If that's so, unravel beyond the decrease, pick up the knit or purl row before it, and finish the body without decreases.

With a sock, binding off every stitch (with a YO if necessary) made the edge too tight. With this pullover, neither the hem nor the cuffs are too tight. And I can probably put like five layers under it, making this one of the warmest pieces I've ever worked.

I used Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride wool, in Victorian Pink. This yarn gave off a lot of fluff, unlike the Orange You Glad color in the same yarn. I had enough leftovers to work a pair of socks, which were not so fluffy. So it's the brioche stitch itself which preserves the fluff.  Your guy won't want something fluffy so use some other worsted or a bulky yarn. And remember, if it took 16 skeins to make the last sweater for him, you'll want 24 to work brioche, even with decreases in the body.

And of course you could work a brioche sweater with buttons down the front, but I have other fish to fry so that is not on my bucket list.

Next time, another mariner's jumper that got adapted into high fashion.