If you have been following me on social media, you may already know I have been knitting the Briochealicious Shawl by Andrea Mowry! You might have even seen my big push a couple of weekends ago to get it finished and off my needles – even though I had a lot left to do! I have learned that if you set goals that are big and audacious, even if you fail, you’ll still get way closer to where you want to be than if you had set a more “achievable” goal.
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Materials:
- Briochealicious Shawl Pattern by Drea Renee Knits
- Yarn 3-4 Skeins of yarn – I used 2 skeins of Marie Schrader from Breaking Yarn and 2 skeins from my stash (more on that below)
- ChiaoGoo Red Lace interchangeable Set – size US 4/3.5 mm
Pattern:
This pattern is a purchased pattern by Andrea Mowry of Drea Renee Knits. You may know from the past that I love this pattern designer and have knit several of her shawl patterns in the past (What the Fade, Ramble Shawl, Nightshift Shawl and now Briochealicious). When I saw that her patterns were on sale for her birthday, I had to snatch this one up because I have admired it for over a year!
Brioche is very meditative for me. Even if I am not saying it out loud, or even in my brain, I am meditating on the stitches and what’s next. Chant *Yarn Forward, Slip 1, YO, Brk; Yarn Forward, Slip 1, YO, Brk* over and over for the length of the row. It would be hard not to concentrate on the stitches and getting into the rhythm of knitting it over and over. This is a big stress reliever for me and I can just get out of my own head space for a bit!
The rows do get VERY long towards the middle to end of the pattern. This can be daunting because if you only have 15 minutes to knit, should you even start a row? Once you get to this point in the pattern, you’re probably confident in knowing where you are and can pick it up and jump back in quick, so this won’t really be an issue.
I realized that mine is a little bit of a different shape than “Cresent” as the pattern says. I think this has to do with how tight I knit. The edges near the top are probably a little too tight, making it harder to lay out correctly. It is also known that if you are knitting during a stressful situation (like your daughter having heart surgery), it can tend to be even more tight during those periods. I don’t mind it though – I will mostly wear it like a scarf and it doesn’t matter as much when you wear it like that.
I also happened to notice that mine doesn’t have a different colored edge like everyone else on Instagram – because I didn’t see that I was supposed to purl two rows in my contrast color before bind off – oops! Mine is just super unique! 🙂
New to Brioche?
If you have never knit brioche before, but would like to, this is a great pattern for a beginner wanting to learn! You only need to know how to increase and basic brioche! Don’t be fooled though – those can be challenging things all on their own!
Lifelines:
Even though this is a simple, straight forward pattern and great for brioche newbies, I would recommend adding in a lifeline before you start each brioche section! I even had to rip back a few brioche sections because of small, but very noticeable mistakes. If you have ever knit brioche before, then you know that it can be very difficult to rip back.
Overall:
Overall, I would recommend this pattern to any intermediate knitter who is looking for a new technique to learn and a little bit of a challenge!
Yarn:
The pattern calls for fingering weight yarn – approximately 790 yards of your main color and another 380 yards in contrasting colors for the three brioche sections.
I used two skeins of 100% Superwash Merino Wool from Breaking Yarn in the Marie Schrader colorway, one skein of lime green yarn that I dyed on the blog HERE, and one skein of deep stash. I loved working with the Marie Schrader colorway – mostly purple with tiny little nodes of pink that just randomly show up! It kept it interesting, while being a beautiful and strong main color.
I realized after I saw how much lime green yarn I had left, that I probably could have used the same color for all three sections. If I were to knit this again, I may do that. Or as an alternative, you could do a fade!
Tell me in the comments if you have knit this pattern before (or any of the other shawls by Andrea Mowry) or if you have been wanting to learn brioche!!
The Reveal:
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