A Bit Unusual

It’s a bit unusual but I’ve decided I like it. It’s terribly comfortable and I think this Malabrigo yarn will work much better in this sort of garment than in a sweater. It’s such a loosely spun single ply that it pills all over the place with the wear of a sweater. This design was based on a pattern I saw in a Godey’s Ladies Book for a young boy’s Body Warmer. The picture showed it wrapped around the child under a jacket or worn under other clothes (I’ll try to find the original picture and scan it in for you to see). It intrigued me so I used a stitch pattern that I saw in quite a few other patterns. I’ve used it before, particularly in the ‘pretty man sweater’ or fisherman’s sweater (whichever, both work for me). In these 19th century patterns it’s called brioche stitch and I’ve seen it mentioned under that name and under the name, fisherman’s stitch. I learned the stitch from an Elizabeth Zimmerman article in an old Vogue Knitting magazine. There’s even this web page dedicated to the stitch and it’s variations, if you’re interested.

The way I learned to do it is to K1, knit in the stitch below the next stitch, and repeat across. The way the Godey’s Ladies Book describes it is:

Stitch Brioche, thread forward, slip 1, knit 2 together, the same backwards and forwards. (It might be better said to bring the thread to the front, slip 1 stitch, bring the thread to the back so that there are 2 stitches laying together, then knit the next 2 stitches)

Either way, you get the same pattern. And it’s a pattern you have to be a little patient with because you won’t really see it until you’ve worked 5-6 rows, at least. I also think that if you were going to use it in the round, you would need to use the version from Godey’s. And it makes things much easier if you work it over an odd number of stitches.

I finished my newest Fiber Trends felted clogs (sorry, I called them slippers before – I stand corrected) and had enough yarn left over that I made a pair of felted mittlets (my own pattern). You probably can’t see it in the picture but I did a little bit of textured stitching that just gives it a little somethin’ somethin’ up close. They fit great. All I did was cast on 36 stitches, did several rows of garter, knit plain for a while, increased for the thumb (until I had 18 stitches between the markers), knit a few rows plain, decreased the 18 thumb stitches, knit plain for a while and ended with several rows of garter. Oh, yeah, and I threw in the textured rows just for kicks.

I love these Fiber Trend felted clogs. I made my first pair 6 years ago and finally decided after they started falling apart that it might be time to make a new pair. And they only take a couple of hours to make. Bonus!

Now I have matching slippers and mittlets. Could come in useful this winter, right?