cowgirlblues / Knit  / Big Brioche Scarf
Big Brioche Scarf worn by Bridget Henderson of Cowgirlblues
11 Dec 2020 In Knit, Pattern

Big Brioche Scarf

Big Brioche Scarf worn by Bridget Henderson of Cowgirlblues

Brioche knitting is quite a complicated technique but the things you can do with patterns are so gorgeous that I’ve been wanting to learn how to knit brioche for ages. Over the past few months we have had Weekly Wednesday Zoom knitting mornings. Jane Renton has done some mini classes covering all sorts of knitting techniques in these sessions. One of these was basic brioche and you can find the video on our Youtube Channel. (Yes, we now have a Cowgirlblues Youtube channel, woo hoo!). It got me started and I couldn’t resist experimenting a bit with yarns and colours. So here is the Big Brioche Scarf knitting pattern.

The Big Brioche Scarf is a very simple construction – no shaping, nothing fancy, it’s all about the basic brioche stitch. And it’s a great way to practice and get comfortable with single colour and two colour Brioche. You could skip the single colour brioche ends and knit the whole thing in two colours. And of course you can play around with many different colour combinations. The Fluffy Mohair really lends itself to this pattern – a nice loose gauge makes it light and airy, and it’s a really generous length. You can easily adapt it to make it a little wider if you prefer by changing the number of stitches cast on..

I hope you’ll enjoy it!

MATERIALS

SIZE

Approximately 30cm wide and ~2.6m long when laid out flat without stretching it

GAUGE

8st and 9 repeats = 10x10cm in two colour brioche

ABBREVIATIONS

K: Knit
St: stitch
MC: Main Colour
CC: Contrast Colour
Yf: yarn forward
YO: yarn over
Sl1p: slip 1 stitch purlwise
(Note: in brioche knitting Sl1p-YO are worked together as a single stitch manoeuvre)
BRK: brioche knit, this means knit together both the next stitch and its corresponding yarn over from the previous row
BRP: brioche purl, this means purl together both the next stitch and its corresponding yarn over from the previous row

Watch the youtube video and it will make more sense

KNITTING INSTRUCTIONS

Starting with single colour brioche:

Using 8mm needles cast on 27 stitches (or any odd number) in either colour, I used Natural.
It doesn’t matter which one you start with. From here we will refer to this as the Main Colour (MC)

  • R1 is your setup row: K1, (YO-Sl1p, K1) repeat ( ) to end
  • R2: K1, (BRK, Sl1p-YO) repeat ( ) to last “two” stitches and finish with BRK, K1
  • R3: K1, (Sl1p-YO, BRK) repeat ( ) to last two stitches, finish with Sl1p-YO, K1
  • Repeat rows two and three until the single colour section is as long as you want, mine was ~10cm

Changing to two colour brioche:

When you change to two colour brioche things get a little more challenging.
With either side of the work facing you slide the stitches back along the needles so you current working yarn (MC) is at the opposite edge and you’re ready to start knitting with the second yarn colour (CC).

  • R1: Using CC K1, yf, (Slip1p-YO, BRP), repeat to last “two” stitches, BRP, K1, turn your work
  • R2: In MC K1, (Sl1p-YO, BRP), repeat to last two stitches, Sl1p-YO, K1, don’t turn
  • R3: In CC K1, (BRK, Sl1p-YO) repeat to last “two” stitches, BRK, K1, turn
  • R4: in MC K1, (Sl1p-YO, BRK), repeat to last two stitches, Sl1p-YO, K1, don’t turn
  • R5: in CC K1, (BRP, Sl1p-YO), repeat to last “two” stitches, BRP, K1, turn
  • Repeat rows 2 to 5 until your MC yarn is finished and you’re got some CC left for the single colour brioche in the contrast colour

Changing back to single colour brioche:

Make sure you finish the two-colour brioche on a Row 5. Drop the Main Colour and continue in your contrast colour

  • R1: K1, (Sl1p-YO, BRK) repeat to last two stitches, Sl1p-YO, K1, turn
  • R2: K1, (BRK, Sl1p-YO) repeat to last “two” stitches, BRK, K1, turn
  • Repeat Rows 1 and 2 for approximately 10cm
  • Cast off

The finishing is very straightforward, just neatly stitch away your ends, gently wash and block or reshape while damp.

Happy knitting!