Tag: knitting

Brioche cowl with color shift yarn

On By CarynIn Craft

Here is the finished brioche knit cowl that I made with yarn that had a long color shift. I absolutely love the play of color that appeared by knitting it from opposite ends of the same pull skein.

Photo description: brioche knit cowl side one in blues, purples, grays, and greens
Photo description: brioche knit cowl side two in blues, purples, grays, and less green
Photo description: brioche knit cowl folded to show parts of both sides

The yarn was two ply with each ply a separate color, so some sections were solid color, but others were purple and gray, or blue and purple, and the colored sections were long. As I was rolling up the yarn into two separate balls, I did find some knots from the manufacturer that put an abrupt color change in the yarn. I reknotted those sections to different areas of the yarn that had a closer match. It pays to rewind commercially spun long repeat yarn to check for inappropriate color changes due to knots.

Second attempt

On By CarynIn Craft

I tried again with the ombre brioche cowl, after I bound off my first botched attempt. This time instead of working from the inside and outside of the commercial pull skein, I divided the yarn into two nostepinne wound balls.

Photo description: center pull ball of yarn wound nostepinne style on a scale reading 35 grams
Photo description: center pull ball of yarn wound nostepinne style on a scale reading 34 grams

Because each ball will slowly change color as I knit, I marked ball “B” with a blue stitch marker so I could keep track of which one I was working with.

Photo description: blue stitch marker threaded onto the yarn of ball “B”

Brioche takes longer because each row is passed over twice: once to knit every other stitch, once to purl every other stitch, slipping the unstitched loops with an added yarn over, but I am quite pleased with the way the color changes play against each other in the fabric.

Photo description: brioche knit cowl in progress

Brioche fail

On By CarynIn Craft

I had another knitter who wanted to talk brioche knitting, so I had to brush up on my skills. I found a beautiful variegated yarn and decided to work from the inside and the outside of the skein, which was stunning done in the two-color brioche ribbing.

Photo description: beginning brioche knitting with variegated yarn, orange leg out on the calico cat on my lap

The color shifts are stunning, but the mistakes in the knit were not. I have a 10 second rule: if a casual observer can’t see the mistake in 10 seconds don’t fix it. My mistakes added up and overwhelmed the rule.

Photo description: brioche knitting with numerous errors, a jag around row 8, misaligned yarn overs, and somehow loosing two columns, laying on a dilute calico cat

The yarn I’m working with is delicate, ripping out the knitting would have made the yarn unusable. Continuing on with all the mistakes was unthinkable, so I bound off and am going to try again.

And yes, those are pictures of two different cats on my lap. I have become a battle ground in cat chess.

Two needles, two socks

On By CarynIn Craft

I love knitting two socks at the same time on two circular needles, but I forget how to do the initial setup every time. Every. Time. So to help my future self, here is what worked this time (after many trials and errors.)

Photo description: loosely cast on 66 stitches using the long tail cast-on method with fingering weight wool yarn on Prym 2.5mm circular needle
Photo description: 33 stitches slipped knit-wise onto a second circular needle

With the first sock cast on and divided onto two separate circular needles, I cast on 66 stitches for the second sock and transferred all the stitches to a stitch holder.

Photo description: transferring 33 stitches from the stitch holder to a circular needle
Photo description: all stitches for both socks transferred to two circular needles so that the “U” shape of each sock has the open side to the left and the closed side to the right

For me, the trickiest part is getting the two socks in the same direction on the needles, then keeping the stitches untwisted as I join the first row. After that, for me, it is smooth sailing. I never cross the two circular needles, always using the ends of one needle set to knit half of one sock, then half of the other sock (remember to switch yarn sources for each sock, so they stay separate.)

On this particular sock set, I will be knitting a 3×3 rib to start.

1×1 color work

On By CarynIn Craft

I’ve been collecting patterns from Wool & Pine that use 1×1 color work. I put my toe in the water using scrap acrylic yarn: a variegated green/tan/black as the main color and then sun and sky colors (blue, white, gray, yellow, orange) for the secondary colors.

Photo description: cowl knit with 1×1 rib bands and 1×1 color work between.

I love the look of the broken horizontal stripes, it isn’t hard, but it isn’t fast. I don’t like the large number of yarn ends and dealing with them at the end of the project. Full disclosure, on this project I didn’t neaten them, just tied knots and left the fringe inside. I

t does make a thicker fabric, which isn’t ideal here in Texas. I do want to use the technique for a larger project, but ideas are still brewing.