Wedding Scarves - Present for My First Cousin Once Removed
Pattern:
Overall scarf designs by the Cactus. Fairisle design from Fabulous Fairisle by John Allen. Brioche stitch (the two color stripe) instructions are in Interweave Knits magazine, Spring 2005. The picture doesn't show, but the scarf on the right continues in alternating blocks of plain stripes and plain blue. Both scarves have the Fairisle design on each end.
The detail photo below shows how the Brioche stitch starts out of the garter stitch end panel. The yellow yarn pulls through to create yellow stripes on the back. Brioche stitch is essentially two peices of knitting in contrasting colors that have been pulled through each other on each stitch. It is a very lush stitch with a wonderful feel that is quite thick, in this case the knitting has a loft of about one-half inch.
This was my first try at Fairisle. As expected, the first end is a little puckery (but it really flattened out well under steam blocking) and by the last end the pucker problem has been solved. I learned that the thing to do is hold the working yarn back (like an "L" shape) against the loop you are working (this is in English style; won't work in Continental Style I guess) and thereby not allow it to pull any tighter as the loop is slid off the needle. The John Allen book can be purchased several places on the web. There are other books with more charts in them, but this book has beautiful pictures and several examples of different color schemes as well as a section on history of the style.
Yarn:
Baby Ull, 100% wool made in Norway.
Purchased at Shuttles, Needles & Hooks in Cary, North Carolina.
Yarn can be found online here.
Gauge:
8 stitches to the inch (before blocking) on size 7 needles. If I had it to do over again, I would have used size 5 needles, especially for the Brioche stitch.
Time:
16 hours each.
More Stuff on the Web:
Patterns for Brioche stitch scarves.
Explanation for Brioche stitch watch-cap.
Explanation of how to do Brioche stitch with photos.
