Last year I was looking to knit a new brioche shawl pattern that seemed more challenging or had a unique construction. I found the Brioche + Mystery shawl by Susanne Sommer which fit both criteria. Keep reading for my Brioche + Mystery Shawl Knitting Experience:
MKAL Design
The Brioche + Mystery Shawl was originally designed as a Mystery Knit Along back in 2021. I have only really participated in one MKAL (the Shawlography by Stephen West), but I really like the shawl designs that I’ve seen from most MKALs. The shawls usually have multiple sections (to fit with the weekly clue releases), and have many different textures/stitch patterns. I like that variety and I felt like the Brioche + Mystery shawl would be a lot of fun.
I think because this pattern was an MKAL design, there is a lot of extra information/conversation in the pattern. MKAL patterns seem to draw in a lot more knitters of all skill levels, so there is usually more support. The Brioche + Mystery pattern is 66 pages long (granted, the font in the pattern is pretty large). I was initially overwhelmed by all the information/conversation in the pattern and set it aside.
Getting Started
Finally, after a year of wanting to knit this shawl and seeing it in my Ravelry queue, I was ready to get started. I read through the pattern to get an idea of the yarn placements and construction.
The pattern has a full section just about choosing yarn colors/combinations. There’s also a schematic/diagram which is really thorough and helpful. Once I understood a little about the construction, I was ready to pick out my yarn.
YARN
I tried to shop my stash for this shawl, but a lot of my yarn was pretty similar hue/low contrast pastels. I think this shawl looks best with some nice contrast so I started thinking about what colors I wanted.
Again, there is some great guidance about choosing colors in the pattern (and also on the Brioche + Mystery shawl Ravelry page). I used the schematic in the pattern to play with some color ideas and chose a palette I really liked.
- A: Cotton Candy – Spun Right Round Classic Sock
- B: Dream – Spun Right Round Classic Sock
- C: Onyx – Hedgehog Fibres Sock
- D: Goldenrod – Spun Right Round Classic Sock
I was really happy with my colors and excited to knit with black yarn for the first time. I knew that black might be more difficult to see my stitches while knitting, but that the contrast would be super crisp.
BRIOCHE + MYSTERY SHAWL
Cast On
I cast on with my US 4 needles on a 14″ cable since the shawl starts out small and you’re turning the work so much. The construction of this section is different than anything I’d knit before.
The Brioche + Mystery shawl starts out as a triangle knit on a bias. It alternates between brioche and garter stripes as the shawl grows. This first section only uses two colors but it alternates the MC of the brioche so that it looks like there are three colors in this section. I think my pink and purple looked really good in this section since they are kind of similar colors, so the blended color sections look really smooth.
Ribbing
The brioche and garter ribbing looks really nice, but there are a lot of repeats to get this design. I usually like more frequent color/pattern changes at the beginning of a shawl, and I was ready to move on to the next section.
What I really loved about the pattern was the clarity in stitch counts and repeats. This pattern has a separate chart with the stitch counts after each increase row since, after the initial pass, stitch counts are different. Also, this pattern uses brackets and parenthesis to clearly differentiate between smaller repeats within a row. Lots of repeats happening in this section!
Pearls
I started this section by using one of my 4″ needles on a 50″ cable to knit across the existing stitches and pick up the new edge.
The one-color pearl brioche looks a lot like honeycomb brioche to me (my favorite!). I was super excited to move into this section and to get to use this pretty goldenrod color.
Brioche Triangles
This section took a lot of mental energy for me. With “plain” brioche, you work MC as brk, CC as brp, MC (WS) as brp, and CC (WS) as brk. That’s what I was used to. If there were any increases/decreases, you’d work them into the MC (RS) row. I was comfortable with this plain brioche and I even understood enough to fix mistakes.
But in this section, the triangles are created by syncopated brioche, switching between brk and brp throughout each row. The pattern is very clearly written. There are brackets and parenthesis to identify the different repeats.
I insert a lifeline before starting this section on the pattern’s recommendation. But I also wasn’t sure if I’d be able to fix my mistakes, so I would have used a lifeline anyway.
I had to take a lot of breaks during this section. I’d put the shawl down and switch to my jigsaw blanket wip for a weeks at a time. Something about the repeats mixed with breaking up the plain brioche that I was used to made this section a challenge.
I couldn’t read my stitches, so it sort of felt like I was on a treadmill, listening to square dance calls for what the next move should be. Some rows were more complicated than others, having many switches between brk and brp. To be clear, the pattern was great and the brioche wasn’t difficult. It was only challenging for me since it wasn’t what I was used to and I didn’t feel confident I could fix any errors if I made a mistake.
Eventually I got through it and I think the section looks amazing. After seeing this completed section, I really got excited about this shawl and couldn’t wait to see the FO.
Stripes & Bobbles
It was such a nice change to move on to these garter stripes. I zoomed through this section, carrying the Onyx up the side, but weaving in the other striped ends as I went.
I had a slight issue with the bobbles where I misread the pattern. I saw the “4st inc” in the instruction as more of a heading than a direction. Like, “this bobble will create a 4 st increase” instead of “do a 4 st increase”. I could see it was weird and confirmed via others’ project pictures on Ravelry. I tinked it back, but still wasn’t sure what I was doing wrong.
Then I saw a reference to Part 3 of the MKAL video tutorial in the “How to make a Bobble” section, but nothing was linked. I searched on YouTube but couldn’t find anything. I remembered seeing something about video tutorials at the beginning of the pattern (pg 8), and I found the link. The videos are unlisted, so you would need to access them through the paid pattern link.
The video very clearly showed what I needed to see, and I continued through the section. I liked this method of creating a bobble, and how it’s resolved on the RS as you work the row. I also really love the texture the bobbles give; this shawl has so many beautiful sections.
Plus
The plus of ‘Brioche + Mystery’ is an actual geometric “+” design which I thought was pretty clever. This section creates a brioche plus design on a garter background.
When I had seen others’ shawls on Ravelry, I thought this section was actually creating a rectangle/box shape. I guess certain colors can pull the eye to see different shapes.
I found this section to be really fun. The brioche was easy to read, and the garter was a fun change. Because there is brioche, you are still sliding your work to knit the second color and I had never done that with garter stitch before.
Stripes + Bobbles
This section was basically the same as the other stripes/bobble section except you use Color A as the bobble color.
This section started out great, but once I got to the stitch marker on the bobble row, my stitch count was off. I had been technically perfect this entire time and was bummed that I somehow made a mistake.
I continued on to the end of the row and I was a stitch off as well. That was when I realized that I had misread the repeat. It ended with a bobble, not the k7. So my stitch counts weren’t wrong after all. I tinked back the end of the row to fix the last bobble, but I had still missed a bobble and an increase before the stitch marker.
I didn’t want to tink back all those bobbles over halfway through the shawl, so I just added my increase and the missed bobble on the WS. It looks great; I can’t even tell the difference between the other bobbles.
Chevron Border
I was really excited to start the border. There are two border options and I chose to do the chevron border. The chevrons are created by brioche increases only which I was interested to see come together. In my Briochevron Blanket, there are increases and decreases to form the chevron shape which makes the peaks/valleys more pronounced.
The border was really fun to knit and I knit the full 10 rows. There is a tip on where to end if you are running low on yarn, but I had more than enough.
The soft chevrons are really pretty and really give a nice interest to the shawl.
I-Cord Edge
The Brioche + Mystery shawl finishes with an I-cord bind off surrounding the entire edge of the shawl. There are two methods to finishing: picking up stitches all around and then binding off, or binding off the bottom and then continuing the bind off with an attached I-cord along the top.
I chose the first method and picked up all the stitches before starting the I-cord. I like to pick up and knit, especially where there is a clear selvege stitch. The pattern says to pick up 250 stitches, but instead of counting, I just picked up each stitch the best I could. I ended up picking up 253 stitches.
I did the cable cast on and started my I-cord around the entire shawl with my 50″ cable. When you get to the top, you are supposed to switch to larger needles so the shawl can block to proper dimensions. I am always nervous about binding off too tightly (since my Marled Magic Sweater), so I am very loose with my bind offs already. I didn’t have any larger needles to switch to, so I just maintained my loose bind off with my US 4 needles.
The entire I-cord process took me 4.5 hours.
Blocking
I washed and blocked my shawl which really opened up the design. I usually block with pins, but I didn’t have them with me so I just shaped the brioche chevron points and gently stretched the shawl out flat.
I was really happy with how loose my bind off was because my shawl easily stretched to the specified dimensions. I love how blocking can really transform a knit.
Final Thoughts
I love my Brioche + Mystery shawl. I love the contrast from the colors I chose and all the different stitch motifs. The actual pattern instructions were well written. Even though it took me a very long time to finish, I enjoyed knitting it.
I learned a lot about brioche and I see so many new possibilities to the technique. That Triangle section was challenging for me, but it’s my favorite section of the whole shawl. I feel like Susanne Sommer really owns the brioche technique. I’m inspired to improve my brioche skills and try more complicated patterns.
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Thanks for reading, and I hope this post helps you with your knitting!
