Effervescent is an asymmetric triangle brioche shawlette, knit from narrow end to wide end. It features a syncopated brioche edging, and assigned pooling bubbles on the body of the shawlette.
The pattern requires two skeins of fingering weight yarn, one of which should be dyed for assigned pooling. You’ll need a 24″ circular needle for working 2-color brioche flat.
Don’t be intimidated by brioche plus pooling! Assigned pooling works well on many backgrounds such as stockinette stitch, garter stitch, and brioche rib. If you can knit brioche rib, assigned pooling is a fun way to play with it.
This pattern is available on Ravelry and Payhip. Use coupon code FIZZY for 15% off through June 19, 2026. Newsletter subscribers, check your email for your special code.
Thanks to tech editor Meaghan Schmaltz, and test knitters Ann Berg, Micaela Langevin, Ashely Meshioye, Lillyvette Montalvo Ostenson, and model Sharon Hsu.
Special thanks to Tammy Pelfrey/A Chick that Knitz, for the beautiful yarn for this design!
This is an old favorite from a 2015 blog post. That’s an old picture! Add a couple handfuls of spinach to round things out; I did last night and loved it even more. You can add any of your favorite salad goodies.
Summer Quinoa Salad
1 cup quinoa 1 cup frozen shelled edamame 1 cup frozen corn (or cut fresh corn directly off the cob) 1 avocado, diced 1/2 lb grape tomatoes, various, cut into halves 1 15 oz can garbanzo beans, rinsed & drained 1/2 cucumber, cut into bite sized pieces 1/4 cup chopped cilantro (unless you have friends who are cilantro averse. I’m looking at YOU, Lisa!)
dressing 4 T fresh squeezed orange juice 4 T olive oil 4 T apple cider vinegar 2 tsp dijon mustard 1 tsp sugar or honey 1/4 tsp salt liberal grind of black pepper
Rinse quinoa. Put in pot with 2 C water. Bring to boil, cover & simmer 20 minutes until water is absorbed and quinoa is tender. Fluff with fork and transfer to large bowl to cool.
Combine corn & edamame in microwave-safe dish. Add 2 TBSP water. Cook for 3 minutes on high. Drain and cool.
Assemble all dressing ingredients and shake in a jar.
When quinoa, corn, and edamame are cool, combine with all other salad ingredients. Add dressing to taste. Serve at room temperature. Serves 6-8, depending on how hungry you are.
I took this to a happy hour yesterday, delish. What’s your favorite thing to cook when it’s warm out?
I finished the second version of my upcoming Trillium Path. This version has optional eyelets, which I highly recommend.
I’m in love.
I blocked it much more assertively than the green version. The fabric is floatier, more diaphanous. Both fabrics are lovely, but I prefer the airier version. Also, eyelets really love blocking.
The green version is now soaking for a reblock! Both yarns are A Chick that Knitz Single Fingering.
Trillium Path is currently being test knit. I’ll publish the pattern in July; stay tuned!
This is Gator. He’s just here to look good. (Kid1’s cat)
This is a Yarn Gator. It was a gift from Twice Sheared Sheep in my VKLive NYC teacher’s bag last January. When I first saw it, I thought I’d never need it.
When I knit stranded colorwork, brioche, or slip stitch knitting, it’s usually just two colors at a time. If the knitting is in the round, they never tangle. The two yarns behave themselves sitting in my project bag.
When I knit brioche or slip stitch flat, I automatically turn the work one direction, then the other. It’s easy to tell which way to turn: the direction where the yarns won’t twist.
My current projects are helix knitting. Jogless stripes, knit in the round. When it’s just jogless garter stitch or two color color stripes, I don’t have a problem.
When I knit this three color helix cowl, I set the yarn balls on the table in front of me, and moved each ball to the end of the line when I finished its section. Easy peasy. But what if I don’t have a table in front of me?
I’m working on this three color helix hat while I finish writing a pattern. I want to knit on the go, and don’t always have a table in front of me.
Enter the Yarn Gator. It clips across my project bag. It can fully open so the yarns can be removed without cutting them. And it keeps my yarn balls in order. When I’m knitting with the first or third yarn, it’s easy to tell which way to turn my work to keep them from tangling. (Somehow the middle yarn is always fine.) Without the gator, it’s hard to tell when I’m twisting my yarns until I have a frustrating tangle.
So I guess this was a good idea after all. Never say never!
If you want a Yarn Gator, you can find it here. This is an affiliate link; if you make a purchase I get a small commission. But I only tell you about products that I find useful!
Are you intrigued by helix knitting/jogless stripes? I’m teaching an in-person class at For Yarn’s Sake on June 20. We’ll cover garter stitch, single row stripes, blending dye lots…all in the round. You can sign up here. You don’t need a yarn gator for class; we’ll use the tabletop method to start you off.
I’ve been craving a simple knit, and here it is. Working title, Trillium Path. It’s simple stockinette with assigned pooling fields.
I love the fields of flowers. I’m adding optional eyelet bands for texture to this second knit. Why? Because the first one ended with eyelets to discourage the bind off from curling, and I’d like to incorporate them in the body, too.
I’m looking for a few test knitters for this single skein piece. This is meant to be simple knitting, perfect for travel or social knitting. It’s knit with fingering weight yarn, 100g. I used A Chick that Knitz Singles Fingering in From Paris with Love (green) and Wildflowers (blue). Let me know if you’re interested!
And Modern Daily Knitting! I’m teaching online for them on Friday, June 26, noon to 2:30 pm Eastern. The class is recorded for rewatching, or watching for the first time if you can’t make it in person.
Entrelac looks woven, but it’s actually knit modularly, unit by unit, each one picking up on the previous blocks. We’ll learn how to make each of those units in class, including picking up stitches, and simple decreases.
We’ll be using Noro Silk Garden for its beautiful color changing properties. You can purchase this yarn with class registration, or on your own. You can use this or any other Aran to bulky weight yarn with a slow color change. I’ve also used Berroco Wizard for this project with excellent results.
The scarf above was knit with two 50g balls of Noro Silk Garden. It’s knit end to end, so you can stop when you want, if you’d rather seam it for a shorter round cowl. (Photos above are from the Modern Daily Knitting site.)
This is the only picture of my Noro sample that I have! I knit most of it on the plane to Nash Yarn Fest, and left it there for photography. I love how vibrant Noro colors are.
Flower Power Entrelac
These samples are knit with one 100g skein of Berroco Wizard. Actually it’s just one long sample, pinned up to show you how shorter versions would work as a cowl.
And here’s an entrelac sample (Minerva pattern) knit with a gradient yarn. It takes longer to see the color change, but it’s spectacular.
I collaborated with Sweet Paprika Designs for their Skill Building Yarn Club this spring. My design for the yarn box featured…brioche, of course!
Cowl
This is the Staghorn Cowl Hat. I love convertible cowl/hats as teaching pieces, because not everyone loves a cowl…or a hat. So you get to choose!
Hat
You can also choose to knit the whole piece in 2 color brioche rib, without the decorative increases and decreases that make the Staghorn motif. This is a great way to practice brioche knitting before getting into the more challenging parts.
Wider cowl
If you know you don’t want a hat, you can make the cowl a bit wider because it doesn’t need to fit a head. Choices!
Staghorn Cowl Hat is knit with 2 colors of worsted weight yarn. The cowl/hat is knit with 140 yards/128 meters dark color, 66 yards/60 meters light color heavy worsted weight yarn. Shown in Sweet Paprika Andante (100% superwash merino wool, 4oz/110g/195 yards/178m), Jacaranda (LC) and Deep Purple (DC). If you’d like to buy the Sweet Paprika Designs kit, you can do so here.
If you’re a newsletter subscriber, you’ll get a code for 25% off this pattern. I’m a little behind in getting my newsletter written, so it’s not too late to subscribe before the newsletter comes out on Saturday (I hope!). Subscribe here.
This pattern is available through my Ravelry store, link here.
This pattern is also available from my Payhip shop, link here.
I’ve got my teacher hat on. Last week I was trying to come up with a new class or two. I’ve been thinking about colorwork, but only one strand at a time. Strandless colorwork? The easiest of which is stripes.
The easiest of which is stripes. Garter stitch or stockinette stitch, I love them both. Then we get into textured and fancy stripes. And slip stitch knitting, which are just interrupted stripes. And even brioche rib is a kind of slip stitch stripe, right?
But if you’re working in the round, you might want jogless stripes.
And you might want more than two colors. I really went down the rabbit hole with helix knitting this past week.
This striped hat has no jogs in the stripes or the garter stitch edge.
And this cowl’s three color stripes have no jogs, either. Magic!
I think these are actually two classes, one in unstranded colorwork with a touch of helix knitting, and one specifically in helix knitting. I’m teaching the helix knitting class at For Yarn’s Sake on Saturday June 20, 11:30 to 1:30. It’s not on the website yet, but should be up soon.
It’s been really strange for me to have three projects on the needles at the same time, but now I’ve finished the hat and cowl. They’ll have a pattern to go with them; it’s not quite done yet.
The third project is now the only project! This is a single skein bias triangle shawlette. The yarn is from A Chick That Knitz; it’s her Singles Fingering in From Paris with Love.
I love this sweet little assigned pooling stitch. It’s easy! Pattern coming soon.
I was searching my blog for something else, and this popped up. I’m running it again because it’s helpful!
How many rows has it been since I cabled? See the hole where my finger is coming out? That indicates last cable crossing. The first ladder next to my finger is from the cable row. The three other ladders over my finger are the three rows that followed. My thumb is pointing at the ladders, just to be helpful. This shows that I have worked the cable row and three more rows (actually rounds here). According to my pattern, it’s time for my next cable crossing!
I learned this trick in 2016 from Norah Gaughan at Columbia Gorge Fiber Festival. This was long before we were teachers/cruise buddies on the 2022 Vogue Knitting Cruise to Canada & New England.
Next door neighbors!
Do you enjoy knitting cables? I haven’t knit cables for a while, but I definitely like them. Check out my Tutorials page for more cable fun, including cabling without a cable needle.
What’s been in my new project bag this past week? Something that got too big for the project bag it started in.
Effervescent
This is Effervescent, finished and blocked. It’s two color brioche rib, with a syncopated brioche edging and assigned pooling motifs.
Frogged and reconditioned yarn
This is the yarn from a previous shawl that I frogged and reconditioned. I had a better idea for it, and it came out like a dream. The yarn is a little fuzzy now; it’s a single ply and I’ve effectively knit it through three projects. But it’s soft and lovely.
I was about 70% finished with the second shawl in this yarn’s life, when I decided it needed to have bigger motifs, and be knit on a smaller needle. Ooof. Good thing I like to knit.
Then I was worried that it was going to be too small. But blocking is magic.
I didn’t block it aggressively; I just patted it out as the fabric relaxed after soaking for wet blocking. It’s airy and drapey.
The pattern has been tech edited, and I’m looking for test knitters that love brioche knitting and assigned pooling. Is that you?
Find my patterns on Ravelry: Michele Bernstein Designs
Here are some of my favorites, and the newest. Many of my designs are also available through my Payhip store.
PDXKnitterati 