This Briochevron Blanket looked so squishy and fun when I first found the pattern. I knew it would be repetitive and challenging, but I set out to practice my brioche at the beginning of the year and this blanket certainly gave me that! Now that it’s complete, I am so proud of it. Here’s my experience knitting the Briochevron Blanket by Stephen West:
PLANNING
I’m not completely in love with the chevron pattern in general, but I wanted to knit this blanket because of the brioche. I felt like using a lot of different colors would just highlight the zigzag chevrons (which I didn’t want), so I decided to do a fade on each side of the blanket. I thought that the fading colors would be the focal point and the chevron would become more of a detail.
YARN
I love bright, fun colors — mostly pinks and purples — and that’s what I like to knit with. It just makes it fun for me and keeps me excited to continue knitting. I found @SprinkledFibers on Instagram and really liked her bright colors, so I made my order for a beautiful fade of DK weight pinks/orange and turquoise/purple. These colors are exactly what I was wanting for my blanket!
I ordered 20 skeins of yarn — 10 orange-pink fade, and 10 purple to turquoise fade. I was just finishing up my Tundra Jumper when my Briochevron yarn arrived; perfect timing! I used my yarn swift to help me wind up my yarn and then I mapped out how I wanted my fades to go for max contrast.
BRIOCHEVRON BLANKET
After knitting the Marled Magic Sweater and modifying that pattern to knit 2-color brioche, I was excited to get started with this blanket. This pattern is basically only 4 rows repeated, and less detailed than the Marled Magic Sweater pattern.
PATTERN ISSUE
I wish this pattern was formatted better and revised to be more clear, and that the broken links and typo near the end were fixed. This pattern isn’t free, so I expect a lot more from a such short pattern.
I had an issue with the Briochevron Blanket pattern: on Row 1 RS CC — it says to do BRP throughout, but you actually have to do regular purl stitches when you get to the previous row’s BRKyoBRK stitches. This confused me so much the first time, and I even ripped back to start the row over, thinking I did something wrong. Maybe that’s an obvious modification to more seasoned brioche knitters, but I wish there was at least a note in the pattern about it. I found some videos that were actually really helpful so it worked out.
The other issue I had with this pattern is the typo at the end. Reading the pattern at first, I thought “LC” must have meant “MC” since M is closer to L on a keyboard, but then I noticed there are edits posted on Ravelry. On Ravelry, there is an “Errata” section with updates which is great, but why not also update the pattern? It looks like a previous errata made it into an updated version of the pattern. I know that when some of my other Ravelry pattern purchases have been updated, they just send out an email that there’re changes. This pattern was posted a few years ago, and it’s so short that I guess I just expect more from it for the price, especially when the change history shows that some updates have been made this year.
I-CORD CAST ON
I had never done an I-cord cast on before so it was really cool to knit up a little chain. I used stitch markers to help me keep count of all the stitches. I started my blanket with the orange/yellow as MC using my US size 8 needles on a 50″ cord.
LIFE LINES
I used life lines throughout the entire blanket because I didn’t understand how to fix mistakes in 2-color brioche and didn’t want to lose a ton of progress if I made a mistake.
I started out using a darning needle to add a life line at the end of each day’s progress; that way if I had to rip back, I only lost one day. But that became really frustrating when I ended up having to rip back to the same life line twice.
Most of my issues were happening during the decrease/increase row. I had gotten comfortable with that sequence and stopped paying super close attention, and then I’d have to tink back. But because the decreases were kind of tricky, I’d get stuck and end up having to rip back. My husband suggested that I just use more frequent life lines, so I started slipping in a life line during every 4th row. My interchangeable needles have a little hole for life lines, which made it easy to just pop one in and knit like normal. Once I knew I had a safety net, I stopped making those mistakes. I re-used the same three life lines throughout — just slipping out the oldest one inserting it as the current one.
At one point, I came across a huge gap in my stitches like I’d dropped a stitch. I’m still not sure how this happened since the stitches above the hole seemed fine. But I found this amazing video that explained how to fix dropped stitches in 2-color brioche. Having lifelines already in placed helped me to find the dropped stitch before it got out of control, and I was happy to be able to fix it with a crochet hook without having to rip back.
BIND OFF & FINISHING
As I got near the end of the blanket, I was in love with the hot pink/orange and turquoise combination. I decided that my blanket was already a perfect length for me and that I would bind off at the end of the turquoise. So, in total, I only used 18 of my skeins and my blanket is 6.5 ft long, ~4.5 ft wide.
The I-cord bind off took a little while, but I love the polished finish.
To finish, I just wove in the ends with a darning needle. I haven’t blocked this blanket, and don’t think I’ll even try; it’s huge! It’s so cozy and comfy and I love the colors so much. I think the fade idea was a success. I love how the speckling and variation in the yarn give it a lot of interest and depth.
TIPS
If I could go back and give myself some tips before starting this blanket, I’d say:
- First watch this video on how to handle purl stitches after the BRKyoBRK row
- Use your life lines at every 4th row, so that it’s in place for the increase/decrease row
- If you run across a mistake, watch the video on fixing first^
- If you can’t fix it and need to rip back to a previous life line, pick up your stitches with a smaller needle. (Swap out your interchangeable needles to a smaller size; it’s so much easier to pick up stitches!)
- As your blanket grows and gets heavier, use a large tote to keep it organized & knit it from the bag
- This blanket is definitely worth it! Have fun making it.
FOR FUN – TIMING
This blanket was really repetitive. I can definitely see how swapping out the colors frequently would make it more interesting to knit. But since I went the steady fade route, I made it interesting by timing myself on the different rows.
My fastest times:
- Row 1 – 17:00
- Row 2 – 15:02
- Row 3 – 13:21
- Row 4 – 12:36
When I wasn’t trying to beat the clock, my average time per row was 17 minutes. I put a lot of time into this blanket!
OVERALL THOUGHTS
Knitting 2-color brioche with DK weight yarn was so much cleaner than with fingering weight held double. The only thing I really missed about fingering held double is the marling effect it gives, but I really loved my yarn and the beautiful colors @SprinkledFibers created.
I still don’t understand how to fix some mistakes with out fully ripping back, but I did get so much better with my brioche skills. I had already learned the brRsl dec from knitting the Marled Magic Sweater, but with this blanket, I learned BRKyoBRK and brLsl dec. Maybe in the future I’ll learn how to knit two rows of 2-color brioche at once:
I did have issues with this pattern — like I mentioned — but, it was really easy to learn the sequence. Eventually, I didn’t need to reference the pattern at all. I like how the edges looks similar to the I-cord ends; it gives a crisp and polished finish.
However, I am disappointed with this pattern overall. This is my second purchase from Westknits and I got so much more detail, explanation, examples, and picture diagrams from the Marled Magic Sweater pattern. Both patterns were the same price, so I expected that I would be getting the same caliber of pattern with the Briochevron Blanket which was not the case.
Even though the actual pattern was a bit of a let down, I love my blanket so much! It took me 11 weeks to finish my blanket. I really enjoyed practicing my 2-color brioche and using my beautiful yarn from @SprinkledFibers. I put so much time into this blanket that it really feels like a work of art. It’s so squishy and snuggly; I’m so proud of it. Check out my Ravelry Project Page to see more pictures of my Briochevron Blanket, and to see what else I’m working on!
