Reptile Skin

Reptile Skin is an elongated shawl worked sideways featuring a simple two-color brioche pattern worked on a garter stitch background… fun and three-dimensional as only brioche stitch can be. With the plus benefit of being reversible!

Two-color brioche stitch worked flat is a little complex to handle at first, but has the big pro of having 3 rest rows every “pattern” row.

The main design element of this shawl are the brioche “scales” in different sizes that run along the piece, formed by double increases and decreases, forcing the fabric in three-dimensional shapes, in a play of texture with two different “garter” stitches, that reminds me of a Reptile skin. The garter stitch background between the “scales” is worked following the brioche stitch color changes, knitted on a “brk” row and purled on a “brp” row. In this way, the garter stitch shows an unusual “marled” effect.