Ryegrass

I’ve been really wanting to use brioche again in a design and I also wanted a small project that was quick to knit because I have a shawl design on my needles which is taking forever! Unfortunately, this design turned out to only be one of those things!

I wanted a nice, light brioche pattern that would provide lots of texture but also have a lacey feel, so I ended up reusing the fluffy brioche pattern from Cìr-Mheala and Mealach for the main stitch. And that was my whole plan. I was going to just use one stitch pattern for the whole cowlette and finish it off with a slipped stich band before binding off.

This is where it stopped being a quick design for me! I was an inch or so from finishing  when I decided the pattern was too plain and that I needed a new plan for a border. After a lot of swatching I picked my pattern, figured out the perfect way to blend the two patterns so you could transition smoothly from one to the other and knit a few inches of the new border.

Then I decided that the border pattern wasn’t defined enough. So I ripped all the way back to where I joined in the round and went back to the drawing board! In the end, I loved the brioche pattern so I decided to add a slipped stitch band to define the start of the border, which meant that I needed more swatching. First to transition from the first brioche pattern to the band, then from the band to the second brioche pattern and finally from the second brioche pattern to a second band. And that is how my quick and easy design became much longer and I didn’t make much progress on my shawl! Patrons get to see this in real time with weekly updates – if you’d like to find out more about my design process consider joining me on Patreon!

You can get 25% off Roille with the code GrassSale until 11.59 pm (BST) on the 21st of May 2024. The pattern is also on LoveCrafts and Etsy!

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