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.

What project kicked your ass?

  • noodleneedles@beehaw.org
    5·
    2 years ago

    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. 😡

      • noodleneedles@beehaw.org
        2·
        2 years ago

        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.

        • fiberandcolor@beehaw.orgOP
          2·
          2 years ago

          Haha, I forgot to respond about the shawl. It’s a three color shawl with different two-color brioche areas. It’s this one: Bixbite Shawl which appears two-color but it’s three-color.

          It’s a stunning shawl and I haven’t given up completely yet. Learning the brioche is hard for me for some reason. I can’t even guess why it’s such a block, not that I think it’s easy or anything. But I feel like I’m learning knitting all over again instead of just a few new stitches. It’s bizarre.

          I saw the shawl on Fraoc Knits vlog and fell in love. I had one skein already and bought more yarn that I don’t want to use for anything else. We’ll see how thing pans out.

          • noodleneedles@beehaw.org
            3·
            2 years ago

            It really is a beautiful pattern! Hope the next round goes more smoothly for you, it’s weird how sometimes our brains just say “nope” to a new technique.

        • fiberandcolor@beehaw.orgOP
          1·
          2 years ago

          I made some popcorn earlier to think about your dilemma. Crunching and thinking are a good combo for me. I kept thinking that, and I’m probably wrong, on a hat, you are binding it to more ribbing (maybe??) and so it was being attached to another stretchy fabric. Whereas binding it to stockinette stops it short of any further flexibility and the caston edge IS like steel really.

          But if you were making a hat like a kep or other stockinette style, that theory goes right out the window.

          Andrea Mowrey has a good provisional folded collar video. I’ll edit this and link it here in a sec as I’m currently on my cell phone.

          I hope a knitting master chimes in with the cause because this is going to bother me and I want to know the answer.

          • noodleneedles@beehaw.org
            2·
            2 years ago

            Thanks, I should try again with that one. I don’t think the final result is any different than the way I was doing it, but clearly omething funky was happening! If I wasn’t so fed up with it, I’d take a close look at my hats to see if I could figure out what I did there.

            Edit-The hats were just stockinette beanies, so there’s no difference there. It’s a puzzle.