Brioche Selvedges

Very few knitters don’t like the look of the brioche stitch. The rich texture and amazing softness of brioche fabric is the epitome of the cosiness and warmth of hand-knitting.

Even though brioche might not be a good choice for some garments, we can easily make brioche borders to add a touch of lusciousness to any project, especially the ones with open side edges (like scarves, shawls, blankets and cardigans), because who would want to hide beautiful side edges inside a seam, right? 🙂

All we have to do to turn any side edge into a gorgeous fully reversible border is to repeat two simple steps in every row as we work on our project.

If you prefer to learn this technique from a video tutorial, click here, or scroll down to the bottom of this page.

CAST ON

If the pattern you follow does not include selvedge stitches, add two stitches to the number of stitches you cast on. When it comes to the type of cast on, feel free to use any one you like. It won’t affect the look of the edges.

To make the swatch featured in this tutorial, I cast on stitches using the long-tail cast on method.

SETUP ROW

Just as it is true for any variation of the brioche stitch pattern, first, we need to work a setup row to give our brioche border a good start. Here’s how to do it:

Bring the working yarn to the front of the work. Then slip the first stitch purlwise from the left needle to the right needle.

It means that we insert the tip of the right needle into the first stitch from right to left, and then ease the left needle out of that stitch.

Move the working yarn from front to back over the right needle to make a yarn over.

Work in a stitch pattern of your choice until you get to the last stitch. I simply knitted all stitches in my swatch.

Knit the last stitch.

Now, that the work is properly set up, we can move to the pattern row.

PATTERN ROW

This is the row that we will repeat in every row as we work on our project. It is the same for right-side and wrong-side rows, and it is comprised of two simple steps that we should do in addition to the instructions provided in the pattern you follow.

STEP 1

Bring the working yarn to the front of the work and slip the first stitch purlwise from the left needle to the right needle.

Make a yarn over.

To streamline this step, push the tip of the right needle a bit further when you insert it into the first stitch.

This way, the working yarn will lie on the right needle and the yarn over will be created automatically when you slip the stitch with the strand of the yarn off the left needle.

Once you finish this step, continue to work according to your pattern, but stop when you get to the last two stitches – the yarn over that we made in the previous row + the last stitch. It will be time for the second step of creating brioche borders.

STEP 2

Knit the yarn over and the last stitch together.

That’s how simple it is. Repeat the pattern row in every row and watch how the side edges of your project become almost three-dimensional.

I’ve tested this border with stockinette, garter, seed stitch and ribbing, and it looks great with all of these stitch patterns. It means that, most likely, this border will work well with the majority of stitch patterns.

This technique is very new to me. I learned it from a short video clip that was forwarded to me by a YouTube viewer. According to the watermark on the video, it was originally posted by @knitideas on TikTok.

I tested this method and instantly fell in love with its simplicity and the beautiful look of the borders it forms. The video clip showed only the pattern row, but once I realized the border is based on the brioche stitch pattern, it was fairly easy to figure out the setup row.

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