Sometimes, when you get in the rhythm of knitting and are contentedly working along, you miss a stitch. Mistakes happen and we understand that awful feeling when you notice it.
Take a look at this Cozy Countess Brioche Cape we have in progress. From the right side, it’s hard to spot the mistake. - in the photo above, the arrow is pointed at the dropped stitch.
But on the inside, it’s quite obvious, as you can see in the above photo. Fixing a mistake in your brioche is a little more nerve wracking than fixing a mistake in garter or stockinette fabric. The first thing you should do is stay calm. Don’t panic! It can be fixed, so take a deep breath, put the project to the side, and have a tea and cookie break. Maybe even put it down for the day and return the next day, refreshed and ready to make the corrections.
Correcting a Brioche Mistake
The good news is that you can redo the brioche without having to rip out all of your hard work because we can focus on just the section that needs attention. Notice how the fabric looks like columns of knit stitches; that is where we are going to begin the repair work. If you’ve ever dropped down to fix a miscrossed cable or to catch an unintentionally dropped stitch, this will seem familiar to you.
Work your way across the round until you reach the column with the stitch that needs to be reworked. Turn the work as needed so the column is on the outside, facing you. You may find it reassuring to use a locking stitch marker to hold an adjacent stitch pair so that wrapped stitch doesn’t drop, creating another opportunity for practicing this repair!
Drop the first stitch of that column off the needle, then drop it through each row below it, until you get to the problem stitch. Take your time! A crochet hook can assist easing the stitches through. When you use a 100% wool yarn, like Naturally Nazareth, the stitches grab each other, so you may need to do a little coaxing here.
Put that live stitch on the crochet hook. In this project, it is our lighter color grey yarn. Position the hook to go over the first strand of the darker color (red) yarn, which you will see is right at the back of the stitch, then under the next two red strands. Grab the next strand of grey, and pull it back under those two red strands, over one red strand and up through the live stitch. There you go! One stitch is repaired!
Repeat this “over one, under two” as you fix each stitch, all the way up the column.
That’s it! After you take a moment to admire your awesome achievement, don’t forget to turn the work back so the proper side is facing you as you continue with the knitting.
Remember, mistakes are opportunities to learn something new and build your skill set! Let us know how it works for you and that you’ve had success, you can find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Ravelry.
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