Syncopated Brioche Stitch

Yarn: Rowan Wool Cotton in Hiss.

Wraps Per Inch: 13wpi.

Needles: size 6 (4.25 mm) Crystal Palace bamboo.

Gauge: 18 st = 1 inch = 10cm.

Pattern: Syncopated Brioche Stitch.

Stitch Count Repeat: Multiple of 2 stitches.

Book: A Treasury of Knitting Patterns.

Page: 158

Knit by: Emma Jane

See Barbara’s notes for Brioche Stitch (p. 46, A Treasury of Knittting Patterns) because just about everything she says applies to Syncopated Brioche Stitch as well. It’s stretchy and fluffy and reversible, and you need to leave off the yo’s on the last row before binding off.

The syncopation forces the fabric to be a little wider than ordinary Brioche Stitch.

One way to think of brioche is that it’s double knitting, except that the strand between two stitches from the “back” sheet is always knitted together with the current stitch of the “front” sheet. In this view, the yo’s are there to make sure that the interstitch strand is long enough to actually knit.

I was expecting this pattern to work by shifting the position of the k2tog’s. Instead, the structure of the stranding is kept constant and the knit columns simply become the purl columns. The order of the yo and the slipped stitch, and where the strand is held while slipping, need to to be modified so that the yo wraps around the slipped stitch correctly in the purl phase. This is clearly a far better design; there’s no need for a transition row between the two phases of the ribbing.

Also note:

Unusually for a ribbing, the horizontal gauge is somewhat wider than stockinette worked on the same number of initial stitches. I got 28 stitches for 6″, and I usually get 31 in this yarn on these needles. (I’m making a sampler baby blanket, so I care!)

The texture is lovely from the side.

As is just barely visible in the picture above, the selvage is a beautifully clean chain.

The pattern is easy to memorize, and it’s easy to read where you are off the knitting.

The fluffiness is flattened down close to the needle. If you’re trying out this stitch (or ordinary Brioche), give yourself at least 20 rows before evaluating the texture — it really needs that much space to pop up to full volume.

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