This is the pattern I chose from the Spring 2009 edition of Knitty, as part of my goal to knit a pattern from every Knitty ever published. (You can help decide what I knit next, see the poll in the sidebar ).
I’ve knit hats before, but never a beret. I used yarn leftover from my Clapotis, lovely 100% alpaca. It’s soft and warm and not at all itchy. And the beret has come in very handy these last few weeks, with all the cool, rainy weather we’ve had. I actually wore them both the other day, and felt tres French.
The pattern calls for fingering weight yarn, but what I wanted to use was a little heavier than that. The ball band says it’s a 4-ply, but the information page on Ravelry classifies it as worsted. I dithered for days trying to figure out what modifications I would need to make the pattern and yarn play nice together. Then I found SweetP’s Slouchy Beret. She used a DK weight yarn on slighly larger needles and it turned out great. So I followed her suggestion, using the instructions for the smaller version of the hat, but kept the recommended needle size. While it looked a little small when finished, blocking it over a dinner plate relaxed the fiber. Not super-slouchy, but definitely a beret. Viola! And Kaity was amused no-end when she figured out that my head is approximately the circumference of the bottom of a dinner plate.
The pattern is quick and simple, easy to memorize, and after the brim I dropped the marker and followed the pattern until the decreases. The end result is just lovely.
Technical specs:
- Yarn: Reynolds Andean Alpaca (discontinued)
- natural
- Needles: 3.25mm magic loop
- Pattern: Reverie by Amy M. Swenson
- New skills:
- adapting pattern for different weight yarn
Nana has convinced herself that she couldn’t make this because it has yarnovers. Here’s a video demonstrating how to do a yarnover English style, and knittinghelp.com has another video showing Continental style yarnovers (scroll down).
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