Current name: Whale Pod Migration. See the line of whale tails heading north? Somehow the name doesn’t reflect the bold yet graceful design of this piece. What would YOU call it? If I choose your suggestion, I’ll send you a copy of the pattern when it’s published.
I’m also looking for test knitters for this brioche cowl. It’s 2 skeins of DK weight yarn in contrasting colors. I used Anzula Lucero for mine. Knitting would finish at the end of December (I know, holidays!), but it would also make a nifty gift to knit, if you’re so inclined. Pattern has been tech edited. Let me know if you want to knit!
The cowl is the same construction as my Aspen Leaf Brioche Cowl, up from the wide end to the narrow end, knit flat and seamed at the neck. It’s a little simpler to knit; there’s less syncopation (just between the edges and the body). It looks like a triangle scarf, but it won’t fall off your shoulders.
Aspen Leaf Brioche Cowl
Speaking of Aspen Leaf, there are just a few more days for the introductory coupon code LEAFLET for 15% off the pattern on Ravelry or Payhip. Use by December 7!
Are you gift knitting? I’m not; I usually just shop my stash of samples. But I’m knitting madly away on some projects; there’s no shortage of knitting here!
I often find that I need just a teeny bit more flexibility than I get with a standard bind off. My favorite long tail cast on is nice and flexible, and I don’t want my bind off to be tighter than my cast on.
First: How do I get my long tail cast on to be loose enough, but not sloppy? Leave space between the stitches as you add them to the needle. Don’t cinch them down tight on top of each other.
A suspended bind off suspends the moment that you drop the second stitch from the left needle in the bind off process. You can pull the yarn up to make a slightly bigger stitch when knitting that second stitch, and that also makes the bind off looser. Then you bind off the previous stitch before dropping the second stitch from the left needle. This bind off works in knit, purl, ribbing, whatever. It doesn’t matter if you’re knitting flat or in the round, either. It looks exactly like a regular bind off; it’s just looser. Here’s a video I made a while back.
Suspended Bind Off
What about brioche? Yes, it works for brioche, too. Sometimes I include what I call a closing row when knitting brioche, bringing those brioche stitches back to plain knits and purls. But if it affects my patterning (as in a decorative brioche increase/decrease patterning), I’ll opt to skip the closing row/round. Then I just use a suspended bind off incorporating those brioche stitches. I used this for my Aspen Leaf Brioche Cowl so that I’d have a nice edge for seaming, and no extra brioche above the last leaf motif. Here’s the new video.
Brioche Suspended Bind Off
I have other stretchy bind offs that I like, too. Jeny’s Super Stretchy Bind Off (good for ribbing), Elastic Bind Off (good for lace), Russian Bind Off…check out my tutorials page for all these and more.
The Aspen Leaf Brioche Cowl features a garland of syncopated brioche aspen leaves on its edge, just enough to make a sweet statement on this brioche rib knit. The cowl is knit flat in fingering weight yarn for a lightweight yet cozy accessory.
Large Cowl
Choose your size, closer fitting or a bigger swoop. Both can be rolled a bit at the neck to show a pop of contrast rib from the reverse side.
The Aspen Leaf Brioche Cowl is knit with two skeins of fingering weight yarn in contrasting colors. I used Manos del Uruguay Alegria in Mojito and Lush. The cowl is knit from the bottom edge up, and seamed at the neck. Gauge is not critical, but it can affect size and yardage requirements. This pattern features flat syncopated brioche with brioche increases and decreases, and a syncopated border around the leaf motif.
Swatching at sea
I played around with this idea while on the Vogue Knitting Alaska cruise, and it has come a long way since then!
The Aspen Leaf Brioche Cowl is available on Ravelry, link here. It is also available on Payhip, link here. Use coupon code LEAFLET for 15% off through December 7, 2023. (How did we get to December already?!)
I’m planning to make a sample of my Starfall cowl with Keith Leonard’s fingering weight Yarn Snob yarn. I love his yarns for assigned pooling. We’re planning to do kits.
The fronts, Wine Mom and Irresistible Bearded IrisThe backs, Wine Mom and Irresistible Bearded Iris
He sent two skeins, so I could choose. That’s a difficult choice when they’re both utterly gorgeous. Which one sings to you?
Starfall assigned pooling cowl
We started talking about kits when I told him how quickly I sold the extra yarn from my assigned pooling class.
A Wondrous Worsted in Times Square colorway
He’s waiting for a shipment of worsted to dye, so this kit is on hold for now. Soon!
I wore my Star Flower Shawl for the first time yesterday. It went perfectly with my new dress. So happy! This shawl was in the works from spring until fall; it took a long time to work out all the details.
I always say that as a designer, I make the mistakes so you don’t have to. They’re not really mistakes, though. They’re choices, depending on what I think looks good, and what I think is easily explainable and repeatable.
Dream in Color Smooshy, Tip Top Tangerine and Sonoran Magic
I chose these colors for an assigned pooling shawl. I planned to base it on my Aloha Shawl, with a contrast color floral triangle that moved into alternating sections of pooling and an accent stripe in contrast color. I thought this would be a simple design process. Nope.
The yarns have a nice tonal contrast with each other. But the colors in the applied pooling skein didn’t have a lot of tonal contrast with each other.
My first attempt told me that the pink flowers were lost on a stockinette stitch background. I could also see that my floral stripe was too bold, and stole the show from the assigned pooling.
where are my flowers?
I noticed on the back side of the fabric, the star/flower popped better against the reverse stockinette stitches, but I wouldn’t want something as dense as reverse stockinette on the right side of the shawl. Garter stitch was my next best choice. Also, I wouldn’t want the beginning and end of the wrap to be so prominent, so we’d have to begin and end the wraps on the wrong side of the fabric. Okay! I also made the flower bands smaller.
I knit nearly the entire shawl before realizing that I’d never like the smaller floral bands after blocking; they wouldn’t be round enough. They looked like columns with headers and footers, and would not be improved by blocking.
(No picture because it was late at night when I had this epiphany, and I wanted to frog it immediately.)
So I frogged back to the first floral stripe, and opted for this one instead. It’s an old favorite that I’ve used on several previous designs (Sophie’s Rose, Aloha Shawl, Nymphaea, Embellishment Cowl). I wasn’t planning to have so many features in common with Aloha, but it was the best choice.
I wasn’t sure I’d like this shawl until after blocking, but I forged on, and fell in love with the finished piece. So pretty!
I wanted to knit one more with a more contrasty applied pooling yarn, and also to double check my stitch counts for the lacy edging. It was then that I discovered that I didn’t like the star flowers to have garter ridges on the front of the fabric when there was this much tonal contrast (ridges depend on if you start the star flower on the right side or wrong side, wherever the pooling color begins).
So I changed my draft pattern to have the garter ridges fall to the wrong side of the fabric. Much better. I was knitting this version on a camping trip to see the Perseid meteor showers, and suddenly this piece became the night sky. Stars, trailing meteor streaks, the contrast bands as the Milky Way. Which made me want to rip the whole thing out again so I could have the extra color pop all to one side of each star flower like a shooting star, instead of centering the flower in the color pop with color running out to each side. But NO, it really wasn’t worth knitting the whole thing over again. You can do it that way, if you want to.
So my Star Flower Shawl could also be Meteor Shower/Perseids. Knitters’ choice!
Every time I picked up my knitting, the cast on edge bugged me. It was a little too tight, and it was curling badly. I didn’t know if it was going to block out, and that made me hesitant to continue.
So I ripped it out. And while I was ripping it out, I started thinking…of course I did. I liked the fabric I was getting with the US 6 needles. I knew about how many stitches I needed for a cowl. And wouldn’t it be nice if it had fewer patterning rounds, and more plain knit since it’s so hard to see the dark stitches?
Do-over!
I cast on loosely, and then knit two garter ridges (4 rounds) before beginning the Old Shale lace patterning. I wanted a substantial edge that wouldn’t curl. I also wanted to put the first lace patterning row further away from the edge, hoping that would also help prevent the curl.
The Bubble Net pattern had patterning on Rounds 1 and 3, and plain knitting on rounds 2 and 4. I’m working Old Shale (with no garter ridges), which has easily memorized patterning on Round 1, then 3 plain rounds. Less paying attention, perfect. I’m very happy with the new start.
I guess I’m designing my own cowl after all.
I’m knitting on Knit Picks Rainbow Options (birch) interchangeable needles. I picked these up at their Knit in Public Day in June. They have just enough grip with this skinny yarn.
Oh, I want to give a shout out to this ebook, Old Shale Variations edited by Mary Spanos from the Greater Birmingham Fiber Guild. It’s a free download on Ravelry, and chronicles the guild’s group project of varying ways to knit Old Shale lace: wider, narrower, garter, stockinette, etc. Very fun to see how you can change the appearance.
I chose to use stockinette (no purling, in the round), and a short number of rounds. Fewer rounds means more complete repeats before heading into an ending garter stitch edge and bind off. (Example: If you only have enough yarn for 10 rounds, you can knit two 4 round repeats, or *zero* 12 round repeats which would waste a lot of this precious yarn. Shorter is better.)
Do you listen to that little voice that tells you to DO OVER? Sometimes I wait a lot longer, and the ripping is brutal! Glad I listened early.
I just finished a design project (picture soon). I’m a monogamous knitter, so that meant I had nothing on the needles. Quelle horreur! I poked around my limited stash, and found the qiviut I bought at Changing Tides in Juneau while on the Vogue Knitting Alaska Cruise in September.
This is one ounce of qiviut/qiveut (musk ox yarn), 200 yards. I guess that means it’s laceweight, not fingering! I don’t usually enjoy knitting with laceweight, but this is so fluffy, it doesn’t feel skinny.
Especially when knitting on US 6 needles! I poked around on Ravelry to see what other people made with a single skein of this yarn. The Bubble Net cowl is a popular choice. I bought the pattern and cast on. Yes, I could have chosen any simple lace pattern and figured something out, but this will be a one and done project. It’s not a design project and I wanted someone else to do the gauge/cast on math/needle sizing for me. Perfect!
The lace is a four row repeat, and two of those rows are just knitting rest rows. But the other two require chanting in my head, especially because the yarn is dark and it’s hard to read my knitting.
Knit Picks Chroma Twist in Sandpiper
So I also cast on a second project. Quite a novelty to have more than one project! This is one block out of 9 planned blanket blocks. I have the yarn for this project because I designed the Impressionist Kaleidoscope Blanket for Knit Picks in 2021. They sent me enough yarn for the design, but I only knit one of the blocks while designing it, the one pictured above. The rest of the blocks are all knit the same, so I didn’t knit them!
Knit Picks Chroma Twist in Lupine
Knit Picks chose their own color for the sample knit. It’s all garter stitch, from the mitered squares in the center to the log cabin borders. The pattern is easy to remember, but the constant change from mitered square to mitered square, and then to the log cabin border keeps the knitting interesting. It’s not just one big garter stitch blob.
Chroma Twist yarn changes color on its own, giving each blanket square its own dynamic personality. And the pattern is free! It was part of Knit Picks’ Twelve Weeks of Gifting in 2021. I’ll knit on this when it’s too dark to see my qiviut stitches, or if I need to zone out while dreaming of what I’m designing next…
I was looking through my blog for a bit of information, and I ran into this post which I am now reposting, because it’s still so true!
I did all my swatching for my new design on my trusty Hiya Hiya stainless needles, but the slipping of the first stitch was aggravating.
When it came to actually knit the piece, I switched to my Knitters Pride Ginger needles, and that made a huge difference. Just a little more grippy, and I felt secure knitting this skinny superwash yarn on US 3 needles.
Aspen Leaf Brioche Cowl, coming soon
My favorite needle changes from project to project; it’s good to have alternatives depending on the characteristics of your yarn! What are you knitting/knitting with these days?
Why does it matter? Original blog post from 2022 below:
Match your yarn to your needles! I don’t mean by color. In fact, it’s helpful to have a contrasting color needle so you can see your stitches! Although I do remember the time I knit a black tank top on ebony needles. Good thing I knit mostly by feel.
When I was at Red Alder Fiber Arts Retreat, I took a class from my friend Carson Demers, author of Knitting Comfortably. Carson is a physical therapist, and specializes in ergonomics. One tip he gave was this: If your yarn is slippery, you might want to choose a grippier needle so you’re not fighting for control. I do love my HiyaHiya stainless steel needles for most knitting, but this skinny Schmutzerella Spectacular superwash was a bit challenging on them. I was more comfortable using my Knitters Pride Ginger wooden needles for this project.
In this picture, I’m moving my knitting off my metal needles back onto my wooden needles. I do love both kinds of needles, depending on the project. I had been using the metal needle as a stitch holder so I could borrow the wooden one for something else.
I’m not saying you should never use metal needles with superwash; I don’t usually have an issue with them. It may depend on your yarn content, or yarn size. Choose what is comfortable for you while you’re swatching (or starting over because you’re not comfortable…) PS: Don’t change needles mid-project; that can change your gauge!
Do you have a favorite type of needle? Or does it depend? What are you knitting with right now?
October marks the second anniversary of the publication of my book, Brioche Knit Love. I wrote it in 2021, as an extension of my love for designing and teaching brioche knitting. It’s still my favorite kind of knitting!
I’m so glad I had the opportunity to write this book. It was first published by Marie Greene’s Library House Press, which no longer exists. Since then it sold out, and I had to figure out how to keep it going.
Printing 1000 copies and running a warehouse from my home? I didn’t have the mental bandwidth for that. In May I finally figured out how to sell it via Amazon/Kindle Publishing Direct, and that works really well for me. I don’t have to mail anything myself, which is great. I also sell the books wholesale to local yarn shops, if it works for both of us. Winner!
I’ve been enjoying all the Brioche Knit Love Facebook Memories posts this month, so I wanted to share that bit of fun.
Seagull Flight
If you want a book that takes you from beginning to more advanced brioche, Brioche Knit Love is the book for you. I made video tutorials to go with the book, too, for a complete brioche experience.
Currently on the needles: more brioche! It’s all about the syncopated brioche edges on this piece. I’m knitting with this gorgeous Anzula Lucero DK which has a bit of sparkle in it.
I’m finding that I’m on a roll with wooden needles; I really like them for a little more control than my usual stainless steel. These needles are Knitters Pride Ginger. I like the finish on these birch needles; they’re not overly slick. But not sticky, either!
Do you have a favorite type of needle? I find it depends on the yarn. For this project, these needles are perfect!
I just finished knitting the second iteration of this piece, a bit smaller than the one shown. It’s a cowl that looks like a triangular shawl. This is one of my favorite shapes, because it’s so easy to wear. No danger of falling off!
Swatching with a Dutch 75 on our Alaska cruise last month
The cowl features syncopated brioche rib, and an aspen leaf motif that climbs along the edge. It takes two skeins of fingering weight yarn in contrasting colors. I knit both sizes with my two skeins of Manos del Uruguay Alegria.
I’m looking for a few brioche-loving test knitters. Is that you? Let me know!
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 