Teaching Myself Brioche Knitting

I love the way double knitted brioche looks for scarves -- and I have plenty of yarn to practice with. But first I needed to figure out single brioche. Thank goodness for The Brioche Stitch! Lots of pictures, links, and videos to get you going.

Casting on was challenging, I think I'll need to refer to the directions for several projects. But the brioche stitch itself is not that bad. Although I did occasionally lose a yarnover...I could pick it up, but not always successfully. The loftiness of the yarn and the stitch itself does hide some of these errors.

4th of July Hats

Wanting something festive and patriotic for the 4th of July, so I decided to try out this hat pattern by Mary Jane Mucklestone. Since it was a trial, I used mini-skeins of a fingering yarn - Sprout Seedlings by The Fiber Seed, and knit the pattern as written.

I misread the pattern and thought there were 4 rounds per stripe which looked skimpy, so I did 6 rounds. This resulted in a rather slouchy little hat.

There was enough yarn left to make another hat, so I did, this time *really* following the directions. The second hat is adorable! Well, they both are...

In conclusion, I think that you could knit an adult-size hat using three of the mini-skeins either by adjusting the pattern or doubling the strands of yarn.

Mannequin Head Update

So I've started the painting! It turned out that "Parchment" was the skin tone I was looking for - not too pink, not too muddy, pretty pale and neutral. I went with black hair because it's more dramatic and traditionally 1920s. I'm afraid the eyes are still too large, but maybe I can minimize them a bit. So here's the latest:

I will eventually outline her lips and eyes, as well as adding eyelashes and some details.

Mannequin Head - continued

Well, the gesso didn't cover the newspaper as well as I wanted, and it has a very matte finish:

One coat of gesso

So I took a break to think about what to do...I picked out some paint colors and tried them out over the first coat of gesso. Then I put another coat of gesso over the paint. I really wasn't happy with the way the gesso looked, so I decided to try using plain drawing paper over the newspaper and gesso. Because the newspaper had wrinkled and hadn't been very smooth, I decided to dampen the drawing paper so it would cover the features more evenly.

My painting test shows through

The wet paper went over the form very well, and didn't need any glue or Mod Podge to stick. I wanted to put a coat of Mod Podge over the paper, but needed to wait until the paper dried. After it dried, some of the paper peeled up a bit, so the Mod Podge was necessary as well as decorative. Now I'll start the painting process and finish with another coat of Mod Podge to seal it.

Chevron Cowl

I picked up several skeins of DK yarn in various places, and strangely, they are all blue! Or maybe that's not really so strange...

They range from 140 yards to 230 yards, so I was looking for some one-skein patterns to show off the yarns. After looking at some hat and cowl patterns, and chevron patterns, I found Zig from The Neighborhood Yarn Co. It used almost exactly the same number of yards as 3 skeins I had of DK weight yarn in similar textures. I had two other yarns, but their textures (twist, etc.) were not a good match.

The yarns:

• A = 2 Guys Yarn Company MCN DK (merino, cashmere, nylon) - 230 yards in Across the Bay
• B = Polka Dot Sheep Stumptown DK (100% merino) - 231 yards in Nightfall
• C = Swans Island Organic Washable DK (100% merino) - 140 yards in Verdigris

The pattern calls for 5 colors of Neighborhood Yarn Co. Studio DK (275 yards) which must mean that you could make two cowls with the yarn...

The stitch pattern in the cowl alternates between stockinette stitch and garter stitch, sometimes one of each in the same color...so I came up with this recipe:
A: 20 rows GC, then 20 rows StC
C: 20 rows GC
B: 20 rows StC, then 20 rows GC
A: 20 rows StC, then 20 rows GC
C: 20 rows StC
B: 20 rows GC, then 20 rows StC
A: 20 rows GC, then 20 rows StC
C: 20 rows GC
B: 20 rows StC, then 20 rows GC
A: 20 rows StC, then 20 rows GC
C: 20 rows StC
B: 20 rows GC, then 20 rows StC
:
continued until the cowl is approximately 49" long.