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.
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!
Oh, the Rispen are beautiful! Good luck with it and let us know how it goes.
All I have are the YouTube videos that apply to the specific stitches that are in my pattern but I'll certainly let you know if anything of them help. I tend to like Andrea Mowry tuts and she has a whole playlist for brioche. That's where I'm starting. A main sticking point for me is getting them to stay in my head. I feel like I need to sit next to someone to learn this but I'll keep plugging.
Thank you! I am bookmarking this immediately! I'm going to start with a a practice square from a scarf pattern I found first I think since the tree shape in rispen is intimidating before I even know straight brioche stitches.
I have to finish my Free Spirit Hat first though which made me learn Latvian braids.
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.
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. 😡
What cast on are you using?
Edit: I think it might be the specific circumference. Because there's not enough give on the cast-on edge, having a wider circumference is going to be key perhaps. ?
I used the one where you do a provisional cast on (I used crochet, I think... need to keep better notes apparently) with 2x the number of stitches you want to end up with, knit the first row, slipping every second stitch, then purling the next row, slipping the already knit stitches. When it's the right length, remove the provisional cast on and k2tog all around. I could've sworn that's how I did my hats. Do you have any idea of where that would go wrong?
Forgot to mention that you have my sympathy for that brioche shawl, lol. Is it one of the two colour ones? I tried that, just in a swatch, and gave up in disgust about 6 rows in. Fiddly lace is no problem, but apparently brioche and simple collars are too much, haha.