Knitting Brioche Book review

I ordered the book Knitting Brioche by Nancy Marchant a couple of weeks ago.  This morning was the first time I have been able to actually sit down and look at the book.. Knitting Brioche is available from all the usual sources (Amazon etc)  The author also has her own website that shows various stitch patterns.

My first introduction to the Brioche stitch was an Eileen Fisher cardigan that I bought several years ago.  The stitch pattern intrigued me.  It looked like a ribbed stitch but it wasn't. This led me to try a pattern for a cowl that I found on the internet.  The instructions seemed straight forward but the results were not anything like the picture.  I ripped it out several times and just gave up.

The book is contains everything you need to know on how to knit the Brioche stitch.  This is the one stitch that I have never been able to knit.  I searched the internet and never could find any really good tutorials that could explain how to do the stitch.

This book is perfect answer on how to do these stitches ( yes. there are actual many versions of this stitch   who knew!)

The book starts with a history of Brioche Knitting and then goes into modern Brioche knitting.  It also includes the stitch terminology and abbreviations and most importantly the charting symbols.  The pages are color coded by section.  The basics are light green, the stitchionary is light blue and the projects are on white paper.  I've never seen this done before. Great idea!
 
There are two areas in knitting Brioche - one color or more than one color and the book introduces each separate sections.

Each section covers casting on, binding off, how to calculate gauge, increases / decreases , cabling and crossing stitches and fixing mistakes and recovering dropped stitches.  Wow!  This is over 80 pages just on this.  Very detailed, great pictures would very good explanations.   She even includes how to do it both right handed and left handed.

The stitchionary contains over 90 different stitches.  Each one contains a color picture of the front and back of a swatch.  The stitch is explained both by works and on a chart using symbols.  At the end of the section, she includes the design aspect of the stitch for incorporating into patterns and even a discussion on form, color and texture.

The last section contains 25 different projects ranging from hats to , wristlets,  boot cuffs,scarves, vests sweaters and cardigans for both older children, men and women.  

I definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn how to knit Brioche or increase their knowledge.  All levels of knitters can learn something from this book.