Zaunkönig

I love brioche knitting because it creates a wonderfully fluffy fabric. In two colors it can  also get gorgeous geometric patterns. I especially love the stitch used here because it creates a gorgeous lattice or fence effect. And that effect is where the name comes from – Zaunkönig (the German name of the eurasian wren) literally means king of the fence. Here, it has been used to create a mixture of a cowl and a poncho.

The color combination is far out of my comfort zone - and was coincidental. I had ordered a lovely royal blue lace weight yarn from Wollmeise and needed something as a contrast color. Because of Covid, I only went once into one local yarn store (and that was in high summer when incidents were low and everybody worked with open doors and windows) and had to decide there and then with "only" the yarn that was there to choose from. I guess without that "pressure" I wouldn't have bought the Wasabi green. Now - that I've knitted this piece (and started another project with the same yarns - see Ravelry project page here) - I absolutely love the color combination and I am quite happy that I was "forced" (by myself if at all) to buy this yarn. 

The pattern PDF is available on

• Ravelry
• Loveknitting 
• Payhip

It is 8 pages long and contains:

• row-by-row knitting instructions for this piece in one size (height 43 cm, circumference top 58 cm, circumference bottom edge 116 cm, you can change the circumference by chanigng the number of stitches to cast on, but if you follow the pattern the piece will we twice as wide at the bottom than at the top)
• charts
• photo tutorials of the brioche stitches that you need to knit this cowl
• brkX - the brioche stitch that gives the lattice effect
• brk2inc - a brioche increase by 2 stitches (in a brk-row)
• brp2inc - a brioche increase by 2 stitches (in a brp-row)

To knit this, you need the following materials

• a total of about 800 metres of Lace weight yarn in two colours
  I used two solid colors 
• the dark blue is Wollmeise Lace (colourway "Kornblume")
• the bright green is Holst Garn Titicaca (colourway "Wasabi")
• 3mm circular knitting needles