The brioche stitch is plush, squishy, bouncy, and a highly enjoyable way to play with pairs of contrasting yarns. It’s also possibly the only type of knitting where the two-color version is actually easier than the one-color version!

With its bold, graphic vertical stripes, brioche automatically lends itself to symmetry and balance… But what if we send it veering off at dynamic angles?

The result is this asymmetrical shawl, which draws heavily on the kite shape pioneered by Martina Behm/Strickmich and beloved of knitters everywhere. The standard kite shape plays with the stitch:height ratio of garter stitch, but brioche has a ratio all its own, and its vertical stripes make the shape look very different compared to the horizontal emphasis in garter stitch. A 3-stitch border around the whole shawl also adds a graphic touch and a tidy, finished look.

The shawl size is adjustable, with a guide to using a scale to make sure that you get the most shawl possible out of the yarn you have. It can be worked in any weight of yarn, with appropriate needles.

The shawl is shown here in three versions: one in laceweight, one in fingering-weight, and one in DK-weight yarn. All three follow the same instructions, with only the needle size and the number of pattern repeats changing along with the yarn weight.

As a bonus, there is only one stitch to cast on, and one stitch to bind off, and there are only 4 yarn ends to weave in!