So, after talking last week about how inspired I was to finish my sweater and knit a bunch more, I did a thing and cast on a scrap-busting project. I am vending at the Ann Arbor Fiber Expo in a couple weeks, so I want to work up a couple more shop samples in my yarn. This… is not that.
I’m planning to knit up an All About That Brioche in a pair of my yarns for a sample and I was considering casting that on this past Saturday night. However, that shawl starts and ends with garter and only has a strip of brioche in the middle, and I was in the mood to knit something completely in brioche. I decided to browse Ravelry again for some other two-color brioche shawl ideas to use as a sample instead. This… is not that, either.
I have a lot of fingering weight scraps. A LOT. Three gallon-bags full, in fact. Many of these scraps are sizable, at least 25 grams. I had seen Stephen West’s Briochevron Wrap before and had no interest in it, but on Saturday when I saw it again, I immediately thought how great it would be for my scraps. After a small issue where I ended up buying the pattern twice, I chose two scraps to start and was off to the races!
The pattern starts with an i-cord, but I wanted to get right into the brioche, so I cast on using a regular long tail cast on and I will go back at the end, pick up stitches along the cast-on edge, and do an i-cord bind-off.
Almost all my scraps are from socks. I chose to start with Opal Love Story in Romantik, which I used for my Fireside Socks, and Arbor Twist Sycamore Sock in Bleed Blue, which I used for Glenn’s Bleed Blue Socks.
This is my first time knitting two-color brioche, but I have done all the techniques the pattern requires (increases and decreases) in one-color brioche, so it isn’t much of a challenge. I’m finding it really addicting and I love looking at the work from each side to see how it is knitting up. I also love when I finish up a color and get to choose my next one. So far I have used up both of the first two colors. When I used up the Opal, I switched to some V Yarn Gold Spectacle in an unknown colorway that I bought at the Ann Arbor Fiber Expo in the spring of 2015 and used to knit Mom’s Sparkly Pink Socks. When I finished the Bleed Blue, I switched to Leading Men Fiber Arts Spotlight in Dames and Sea, which I also bought at the Ann Arbor Fiber Expo, this time in the fall of 2015, and which I used in my Doodler shawl.
This is one row after adding the Dames and Sea, so you can just barely see it.
I am having a lot of fun revisiting these yarns. I know I should be working on my sweater, my shop samples, or my designs, but lately this is all I have wanted to knit. I definitely recommend this pattern for scrapbusting!
