Honeycomb Brioche Cowl Shrug

Honeycomb Brioche Cowl Shrug by Browneyedbabs

What Is Being Made

The Honeycomb Brioche Cowl is a knitted cowl designed as a versatile neck accessory. This pattern creates a textured, dimensional piece that can be worn as a cowl or adapted as a shrug. The finished garment features a distinctive honeycomb texture created through brioche knitting techniques, resulting in a fabric with excellent drape and visual interest.

Craft and Construction Method

This is a knitting project worked in the round on circular needles. The cowl begins with a stretchy cast-on method to ensure comfortable wear around the neck. The pattern uses setup rounds to establish the brioche structure before moving into the main repeating stitch pattern. The circular construction means you'll be working continuously in rounds rather than turning the work back and forth, which creates a seamless fabric ideal for a cowl.

Stitches and Techniques Used

The Honeycomb Brioche Cowl employs several key knitting techniques:

• Brioche knitting: A specialized technique using yarn overs and slipped stitches to create a textured, elastic fabric with a distinctive appearance
• Yarn overs (YO): Creating new stitches by wrapping yarn around the needle to add texture and lace-like elements
• Slipped stitches (Sl1): Moving stitches from one needle to another without working them, essential to the brioche structure
• Purl two together (P2tog): A decrease that combines two stitches into one, used to manage stitch counts and shape the fabric
• Knit stitches (K): The fundamental stitch that forms the base of the pattern

The pattern uses alternating odd and even rounds. On odd rounds, the P2tog decrease incorporates the slipped yarn over from the previous round, while even rounds feature a simple knit-slip-knit sequence. This creates the characteristic honeycomb texture through the interplay of brioche stitches.

Materials and Gauge

The Honeycomb Brioche Cowl requires 300 yards of worsted weight yarn. The sample shown was knitted in Knitpicks Chroma yarn, which is a durable blend of 70% wool and 30% nylon. You'll need a 3.75mm (US 5) circular needle with an 18-inch cable and a stitch marker to track your rounds.

The pattern gauge is 21 stitches over 14 cast-on rows and 44 rounds. You'll cast on 150 stitches using a stretchy cast-on method such as Jeny's Stretchy Slipknot Cast-On, which increases to 225 stitches after the setup rounds, ensuring the finished cowl has appropriate stretch and recovery for comfortable neck wear.

Skill Level

This pattern is rated as beginner difficulty, making it an excellent choice for knitters new to brioche techniques or those looking to expand their stitch repertoire. While brioche knitting may seem complex, the straightforward repeat and clear abbreviations make this an accessible introduction to the technique.