Learning a New Technique

Near the end of December, I decided that I would get a jump start on my knitting goals for 2020. Check out this post, A Year in a Review to see those goals. I was going to learn Brioche knitting. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this term, Brioche knitting is a stretchier rib that is completely reversible. A lot of times it is done with two colors and each side will have a predominant color.

All of the best looking patterns use two colors, so I went searching through my closet for two colors that would work well together. Usually these patterns call for a light and dark color for better contrast. I finally settled on this dark purple and light gray combo.

Now that I had my yarn I was ready to start learning Brioche. I sat down with my needles, yarn, and some YouTube videos. I had heard that this was a hard technique, but with the video I was getting it. Or I thought I was. Then I got to row 5 or 6 and it looked nothing like the video.

So, I started again and again and again. Over the next few
days I started a lot more times than I want to admit. Each time I would get to that same spot I had to take it all out again. I tried a different video. I tried some written instructions. I kept getting stuck at that same spot.

At this point I was frustrated and decided to put the yarn down. But, I am stubborn and still wanted to learn this technique. I thought that I would just watch a few videos without trying to knit along with them. I would just watch them start to finish and analyze them. I still couldn't figure out what I was doing differently from them.

Then I found this video from Happy Knitter and something just clicked. She holds her yarn similar to how I hold mine. I finally understood when she was holding the yarn in the front and when she moved it to the back. But, the best part of the video is that she explains the theory behind this technique. She explains how one can just look at the previous row and tell where to knit, purl, or yarn over.

She also has the chart work at the top of the video and explains the symbols row by row. Explaining them using the Brioche terms as well as the familiar knitting term. Of course I would have to pick a new technique that uses completely different chart symbols and terms.

After watching her video I was able to pick up the yarn again. This time I was finally able to get past those dreaded rows 5 and 6. Turns out my only problem was that during some rows I was holding the yarn in the front when I should've held it in the back. Simple mistake made a big difference after a few rows.

Once I got past those initial rows it worked up fairly quickly.  Now I can't wait to start a more complex Brioche knitting pattern.