Brioche Begins

I finallly got my head wrapped around the brioche stitch, or got my head unstuffed enough to just TRY it!  The attempt was ... interesting ... to say the least, but i frogged it and tried again.  I also did a wee bit more clicking and research and found another pattern that made more sense to me.  Don't get me wrong, the orginal pattern i had found was decent enough, but I think she went to far to explain things - and made it harder than it needed to be.  This other pattern I found at Fireflower Knits made way more sense to me for some reason. Maybe because she laid out it with simple knit directions without the explanation.  It was nice to be able to start the pattern without having to read a full page of explanations that came before they needed to.  (Hmmm - maybe that's why i had such an issue with my Seafoam Flower sweater - it was over explained, and didn't have instructions where they needed to be ...food for thought there).  This specific line was my personal lifesaver "Edited to add: Slip all stitches purlwise with yarn held in front throughout."

The stitch itself is pretty mindless and creates its own rhythym once you get going - granted i needed to keep my eyes on what i was doing because of the yarn overs.   The brioche stitch itself is 3 stitches (sl 1, YO, K2TOG), and each row starts and ends with a K stitch.  Easy Peasy! 

As you can see in my pic (go ahead and click, it'll open in a new window), I got the first cable started - and also shifted my stitches over by one :( ... not even gonna try and tink (reverse knit) this, and i'll just frog it and start it again - this bit here took me less than an hour to do, so I'm thinking it's going to knit up pretty fast.  Back to the cable part - she has you slip the stitches to your cable needle, then slip them back - not to sure WHY this needs to be done .. im thinking that's where i shifted my stitches over is doing that .. ah well .. I'm excited and pretty pleased so far, even though Im gonna have to frog it and start again ..

Im doing this with Red Heart Super Soft in Royal Purple with US 10s

Phase II

The first attempt went well with using the medium sized shallow bowl, but it still wasn't quite big enough, so the next step was a dinner plate.  Had to really sweet talk it to get it over the plate and the whole while i was saying, "Thank God I didn't drop any stitches' LOL ... if i had, I would've seen them then LOL ...
I put this on the dinner plate last nite, re-sprayed it with my spray bottle - this am it was damp on the underside that was resting on the towel, so its been flipped and just waiting for it to dry out totally before i try it again :)  I think its gonna be okay :D  woot woot woot .. now to decide on the scarf .. course you know i've changed my mind on it LOL

Blocked Salvage Attempt

I've decided to try n salvage my poor beanie beret ... blocking should hopefully fix this.  Granted it IS acrylic yarn, but should be able to be shaped regardless.   I used a shallow bowl that we use for pasta or chicken caesar salads, force-fed it onto the bowl and wet the edges, and dampened the rest.  I know i should prolly apply heat, but will battle that later.  Let's see if this happens to work at all this way.  Keep ur fingers crossed for me please <3

umm .. blech n yuck :(

Nope, do NOT like how this turned out at all!  Doesn't look like the pattern pic at all ... and of course i think to look at the project pictures that other members posted AFTER i finished. Seems that im not the only one that ended up with this funky shape :S   This isn't a pattern that naturally shapes into a beret like the one i wrote does, but has to be blocked over a plate .. if this was done in a wool blend, then that would be an awesome idea .. but its 100% pure acrylic ..
So off to ravelry i go again to find an actual beret, i've enough of this yarn kicking round that i should be able to make up another one as this one used maybe ½ the skein. And worse comes to worse, i can ditch one of the scarf patterns i had picked. Maybe I won't need to do two scarves, if i manage to find another beret pattern i like that uses worsted / aran weight yarn.
im just so disappointed that this turned out this way.  I know i followed the pattern exactly and i knit to gauge, so not an issue at my end .. // kicks desk and sulks a bit :'(

I'm going to block this and see how it turns out .. can't be any worse than it is now, right??  Off to find a bowl / plate i can use for this .. ahhh i know ...the shallow bowls we use for pasta should be perfect me thinks :D

Decreases Started