Brioche stitch creates a beautiful, lush, and squishy fabric. This cowl is a great beginner brioche project to get you used to the brioche stitch. When I learned brioche I was taught it in the round and I find it much easier to start here than with a flat scarf.

The cowl name was inspired by the Madeline Tosh yarn color mala. It also inspired the number of stitches cast on, which is 108. In yoga 108 is an auspicious number and it is said that there are 108 types of meditation. There are many different meanings of 108, and here we use it as our cast on number, and perhaps as a meditation as we knit the brioche stitch.

The pattern can be found in the book, Yoga of Yarn: A Knitter’s Handbook for Self-Discovery.