February 2010 Ta-da! It’s finished. Very pleased with the result.

Like I mentioned before, once you get acquainted with the brioche stitches and terminology, the pattern isn’t that hard. Also now Nancy’s book “Knitting Brioche” has been published, it will probably help that there are excellent tutorials of all the stitches in there which will make knitting this pattern a lot easier.

December 2009 Test knitting this pattern for Nancy. Though I have done some brioche knitting in the past it was only fishermans rib in one color. Lace brioche knitting in two colors is a totally different story. One of the hard things is that you have to look up every step of the pattern - though every stitch is comparable to normal knitting with brioche it’s often slightly different and you need to make sure you’re handling the colors of yarn right (holding it to the back or the front). I have to admit I’ve thrown several mini tantrums. As Nancy advices it’s best to start out making a swatch with scrap yarn. I managed to make two pattern repeats and I honestly felt I had cracked the Da Vinci Code when I had those finished.

Once you understand the basics - it’s actually not that hard. Hopefully this will encourage those (brioche knitting beginners) who picked up this pattern to pull through - especially since the result is stunning!

Additional (helpful) notes It’s advice-able to knit a swatch to make sure you understand the pattern repeat, before you start making the scarf. I did it with some cheap yarn and did only two pattern repeats (instead of the three you do in the original pattern). Besides that it can be worthwhile to use life lines in case you make a mistake and want to frog back. Getting your project on the needles after frogging might be harder with brioche, because of the yarn overs.