CAROL FELLER
Irish designer Carol Feller is much admired
around the world thanks to her beautiful
knitwear patterns and her sophisticated range
of yarns, Stolen Stitches. Her brioche designs
are typically elegant and thoughtful.As with so many knitters,
it was Nancy Marchant who
inspired Carol to try out
brioche. “Several years ago,
I met Nancy, and I was
fascinated that this was the
only stitch that she worked
with!” recalls Carol. “I loved
the fact that you could create
knitted fabric that looked
like ribbing, but with the
two colours combined in
vertical columns.
“I bought Nancy’s book,
Explorations in Brioche
Knitting, and I began
swatching. When learning a
new stitch I mainly swatch in
a single colour, then two
colours, and then a bit of
lace. Once I felt I understood
the construction of brioche,
I began experimenting.”
For Carol, the most
amazing thing about brioche
is that even simple stitches
look astonishing, as the
results are so dramatic. She
encourages knitters to start
with one-colour brioche,
and then introduce a secondcolour when they have
mastered the basic stitch. “It
takes a little while to get used
to the rhythm of the stitch.
It’s not difficult, but it needs
practice to feel comfortable
with it and recognise the
new stitch construction.”
Carol’s personal favourite
brioche design is her ‘Vines
and Vale’ shawl. “It falls into
my favourite category of
patterns: less is more! There
is only a small edge lace
panel, but this allows the
all-over brioche to shine.”
http://www.stolenstitches.comCAROL’S TOP TIP:
“Swatch! Do a really
narrow swatch,
working from single
colour to two-colour,
and practice fixing
mistakes so that
you’re not terrified
when your brioche
gets messed up!”STEPHEN WEST
Some of the most extraordinary brioche designs
you will come across have been created by
Stephen West. He has earned worldwide
popularity thanks to his knitting patterns,
which are a perfect marriage of extraordinary
colour combinations and elegant, structural engineering.Stephen was already
modifying knitting patterns
when he was in high school
and college: “I loved a lot of
women’s sweater patterns,
but I had to adjust the size
and patterning to fit my
larger frame,” he explains.
Reading Elizabeth
Zimmermann’s books helped
give him the confidence to
play with knitting from
scratch and start to design
his own patterns.
The way he brings brioche
into his designs, often
combining it with other
textures, makes each design
a knitted adventure. “I love
how sophisticated the stitch
looks - it’s reversible and
squishy, so it’s very pleasing
to watch the fabric grow,”
Stephen says. “Brioche has a
unique rhythm to it as well,
which I find calming.”
Stephen soaks up
inspiration on his travelsaround the world, and
particularly loves to walk
round Reykjavik in Iceland
and Tokyo in Japan. “They
are drastically different
environments, but I love the
colours and activity in each
city. I get a lot of styling and
garment proportion ideas
while people-watching.”
Stephen’s spectacular
range of designs includes
not only brioche stitch, but
lace, stranded colourwork,
cables, short-row stripes: his
creativity is boundless. One
of his personal favourites is
his ‘Dotted Rays Shawl’. “It’s
so simple and fun to knit.
It features a simple way of
doing short rows where you
accentuate each short row
turn with a double yarnover.
You can knit it with any yarn
weight, and it looks great as a
solid shawl or with stripes or
a fading colour palette.”
http://www.westknits.comSTEPHEN’S TOP TIP: “ Always carry your knitting
with you. You never know when you can sneak in
a few rows. Every moment helps finish a project.
If you wait until the right time to knit, you may never
finish a project.”PH
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Brioche Focus
The Knitter 57 Issue 149