Questions about the Brioche Stitch

#1

Okay, after hearing the Rave Reviews of the Brioche Stitch’s many virtues I decided to try to make a set of dishcloths with it. I know the stitch pattern is Sl1 purlwise, yo, k2tog. Well, here’s where the questions start… I’ve watched countless videos on YouTube of English knitters doing the stitch with the yarn in front and doing some kind of funky X lookin’ wrap around both needles when doing the k2tog. Unfortunately, I can’t find a single video of someone knitting this stitch in continental and the English video is just not making any sense to me. So, I dug in and tried doing the stitch, I mean how hard can it be? That was my first mistake.:shrug: I’ve frogged this same 45st washcloth at least 10 times trying to get the brioche stitch to look like anything I’ve seen pictured.:wall::zombie::wall:

So here are my questions:

  1. Does anyone know of a specific video of Brioche being done by a continental knitter that you could link me to?
  2. If not, can someone attempt to explain the hand motions used by a continental knitter to knit this stitch?
  3. Failing those two things can someone refer me to some other resource to get this sorted out?
  4. Do you perhaps have any advice/suggestions on how to make this stitch work the way it’s supposed to? i.e. a soft cushy, fluffy, stretchy, plush stitch? For some reason mine keeps turning out really knotty lookin’, not soft at all, not stretchy, and no matter what I do with my tension I’m having the dickens of a time getting my needle into the two knit stitches for the k2tog. (It feels like I’m trying to put a size 15 into a size 3 stitch.)

Thanks very much for any help you can offer.
Tre’sha

#2

Maybe I can help even though I don’t have a link or knit continental. Instead of leaving the yarn in front and k2tog, take the yarn over the needle (a yo) and hold it with a finger while you k2tog. Check out the brioche stitch website as well, and also look at the Fisherman’s rib variation, where you k1 in the stitch below instead of sl/yo and k2tog. I find that very easy to do. It also takes about 2-3" at least before the st begins to look like it’s supposed to; before that, it’s kind of mooshed up.

#3

Here’s a video for continental Brioche stitch in the Fisherman’s rib variation. It’s done in the round but the first round in the video is the same as the flat pattern.

#4

I had the same problem when I was trying to learn this. The videos are for English style knitting and are confusing. I don’t know of any continental videos. I’ve looked. Here’s how I do it.

You’ll need to cast on a multiple of 3. I do all of this with the yarn in back. Some videos will tell you to do a setup row first. I don’t do that. I just knit the same pattern on the right side and the wrong side.

Slip the first stitch knitwise. Yarn over. Hold the yarn over on top of the right needle with your right index finger as you knit the next two stitches together. You just keep repeating this along the entire row. You will end the row with a k2tog. It’s going to look wonky until you’ve knit six rows or more. After that, you’ll begin to see the pattern.

When you’re knitting two together, it will go easier if you slide the two stitches close to the tip of the needle (without the stitches falling off). I insert the tip of the right needle into the bottom of the stitches. This is really easy to do if you have the pointy Knitpicks needles. This gives you a little wiggle room and makes the decreases easier. The Brioche stitch makes nice cushiony washclothes for in the shower. They puff up when wet and feel nice against your skin.