Level Brioche: UNLOCKED

My first make of 2021 is this colorful brioche shawl. I used the Briochealicious shawl pattern by Andrea Mowry. I have wanted to try brioche for some time but felt completely intimidated by it, but turns out 2020 was my year to learn brioche. I used Andrea’s YouTube brioche videos to learn the stitches and while it takes a bit of concentration to learn, it’s not hard once you get the hang of it.

The hardest thing about brioche is learning to detect and fix mistakes; a dropped brioche stitch is a complete headache to fix. Luckily this shawl alternates brioche sections with garter sections, so you get a bit of a mental break between the intense brioche runs.

A few project notes:

Yarn: I used Hedgehog fibres Sock Yarn in pollen, coral, graphite, and a whiteish flecked color I don’t know the name of. I was so excited to try Hedgehog yarn but unfortunately this was 100% the wrong yarn to use for this project. Chalk that up to this Hedgehog newbie not understanding that they have multiple fingering weight yarns. I love the result but if this shawl had a movie rating it would be rated R for strong language (many a “fuuuuuuuck” was uttered as I knitted along to British Bake-off back episodes). I cannot recommend this yarn for this particular pattern, though it is an absolutely lovely yarn.

Size: As a result of aforementioned issue, the shawl is quite significantly smaller than it should be. It’s still fairly substantial and goes a couple of times around my neck.

Color: I was inspired to combine these (admittedly strange together) colors by this shawl by @gingertakesphotos; her shawl has a fun hot pink rather than my coral and a navy rather than a charcoal, but the base color is the same and I think I managed to create an homage to her shawl rather well. If only I had noticed she used Hedgehog’s Skinny Singles rather than Sock Yarn WAAAAH.

It was fun to watch my brioche stitches get better, tighter, and more even as the shawl progressed. My first try at the pink section was loosey goosey terrible, but I tore it out and redid it for a better result. Each brioche section looks better with the black section being my best.

All in all, quite pleased with self for trying something new and I enjoyed this pattern immensely. A great project to knit my fury into as 2020 turned over into a new year.