Merci, Michelle!

A couple weeks ago, local gal Michelle posted a brioche stitch infinity scarf she'd made.  I was immediately obsessed; I had to have my own Right Away.  At the earliest possible moment, I made my way to my LYS, intending to buy the very same yarn she'd used.  But alas, they didn't have any colors I liked.  I briefly considered ordering some, but in the end my impatience led me to shop my stash, where I found 3 balls of the discontinued RYC Soft Lux.  Not the color I had in mind, but it was at least on hand.  I cast on as soon as I dug it out of my stash box.

RYC Soft Lux in Sable

unfocused, to better show the metallic highlights

The pattern is a free one, really more of a recipe.  The designer recommends using a larger-than-usual needle for working the brioche stitch to make the scarf more cushy, and with that as a guideline you could use lots of different yarns to create this scarf.  For this worsted weight yarn I used a size 10 (6.0mm) needle, as I knit loosely.  My yardage ended up being about 30 yards short of the recommendation; however, my scarf is 46" long and I am short, so it's a good length for me.  The 40 stitches I cast on gave me a width of about 12" when relaxed.

I haven't blocked this scarf, and I don't think I will.  I don't want to lose any of the loft of the stitch, and this yarn is rather delicate, being basically a singles with a metallic strand wrapped around it.

The pattern says you can seam or graft your stitches together.  I started with a long-tail cast-on, so I chose to seam with mattress stitch at the end, giving the scarf one twist beforehand.  It's not a big deal for me to keep the seam at the back, and it's not very visible anyway.

Apart from the squishiness of the brioche stitch and the softness of the yarn, what I really love about this is that it can be worn a few different ways:

hanging

draped around the shoulders

doubled around the neck

Even though this scarf isn't a very versatile color (I really wanted off white) I just love how it turned out.  I'm pretty sure I'll be making more of these.  It took me about a week to make; I was working on other projects during that time but I'd say about 60% of my efforts went to this one.   So, a pretty quick make, and very enjoyable - the brioche stitch was so fun to do.

The only thing I might add to the recipe is instruction on how to do the cast-off row if you're going to seam (or the final row if you're going to graft):  in every row, you do *yo, s1 purlwise, k2tog* - where the yo from the previous row counts as a stitch.  In the final row, omit the yarn overs and instead of slipping one purlwise, purl that stitch, then knit the next 2 together.

Are any of you inspired to try out this pattern?  I think it's a great one for gifts and also for travel knitting.  For me, this was early-morning coffee-drinking knitting, waiting room knitting and coffee date knitting!  So thanks for the inspiration, Michelle!