When in Washington, D.C. last month, I bought a skein of green worsted-weight hand-dyed yarn from this very nice woman, at a street market near Dupont Circle. Solitude Wool makes breed-specific artisan yarns from sheep in the Chesapeake Bay area.
I started knitting this lovely yarn into a beret during the week I spent with my father, just after that trip, and finished it a few days ago. (I ripped out the ribbing and reknit it with smaller needles after the hat was finished...typical me.) My pattern was the Simple Beret by Hannah Fettig, ($6 for the PDF download) which comes with directions for four different yarn weights: fingering, double knitting, worsted, and bulky.
I've worn berets and beret-style hats forever, even as a kid: I remember an authentic Scottish tam o'shanter that I loved, and two berets my grandmother made me -- one in black angora, the other in grey mohair. Somehow, though, I had never made one myself. The typical shape is created through increasing a great many stitches between the ribbing and the body of the beret, and then decreasing to make the flat crown, which makes this wonderful swirl pattern. A beret can be made as perky or as slouchy as you want. When you're finished, you wash it in lukewarm water (I added a little hair conditioner for softness) and block it on a dinner plate. Fun!
The photo shoot didn't go quite as planned, though I should have known better. This is the background: the wonderful scarf that goes with the beret, and everything else -- a gift several years ago from my dear friend Gay.
You can probably figure out what was going on behind my back as I was trying to take my own picture...
I guess I should make her one of her own, with little ear-holes: she's a French cat, after all!
But I got it back eventually.
I love that! (and your cat's quite fetching as well, all bonneted and scarved. . . I've made slouchy berets, worsted-weight, and I wear a felted beret almost every day through the winter, yet I've never knit a proper one myself either. I'm thinking it's about time . . . .but currently knitting a Kate Davies Rams & Yowes blanket and the kit has enough yarn, apparently, to make a Sheepsheid Tam;that hat will have to come before any beret. . .
Posted by: Frances/Materfamilias | November 06, 2013 at 04:34 PM
I love the photo of your sweet cat wearing the beret -- that's wonderful!
Posted by: Rachel Barenblat | November 06, 2013 at 06:46 PM
How did you--how do people--learn this skill? I feel as though everyone in the world except me knows how to knit.
Posted by: Andrea | November 07, 2013 at 12:20 AM
I'm really adaptable, I can write about anything, it's what people paid me to do for nearly half a century. The well is never dry, the tone remains spritely, I can disguise ignorance with persiflage, if all else fails I've quotes from writers nobody's ever heard of - John Lodwick, Frank Smythe, how about them apples?
But knitting! I'm like a cop who normally does parking tickets suddenly coming up against Organised Crime.
Others might think it started with Lucy. It did, but way back. Months ago. So I trotted out my knitting stuff, about how I knitted only one bootee for my elder daughter and how poignant that was. How my fingers ended up feeling arthritic even though I was only in my late twenties. Lucy agreed about the poignancy.
A month ago, Lucy resumes with knitting. I am witty and inventive. Then another knitting post, then another. I have this tradition about never not responding. My last gasping comment takes an engineering approach, reducing knitting to its mechanical quintessence. Then I fall silent.
In the interim VR, a great knitter in her time but these days more inclined to Kindle, embarks without warning on a set of carol-singing mice. Knitted! I make nervous suggestions about creating miniature simulacra of their carol scores. I worry.
Now this, and I'm really worried. That close-up below the pic of the hatted cat - what am I to make of the expression? Surely a knowingness: yooo'll never understand (in a Lyse Doucette accent). Hey, I wouldn't mind being laid low by some devastating apercu about nuclear electrodynamics. But not knitting. What's the French for paranoia?
Posted by: Roderick Robinson | November 07, 2013 at 02:46 AM
I loved this post. (excuse me whilst I shove a giggling, oooohing and aaaawing Lucy away) These days I am able to stand back without a wish arising to knit. I actually began knitting at around six or seven years of age, a blue cardigan with a pattern of holes in triangles, for my eldest sister. Since then, no the tale is too long, and anyway it would drift into dressmaking as well.
Far too busy to indulge in something as creative as knitting.
Posted by: Tom | November 07, 2013 at 04:54 AM
Frances, please share photo of whatever you make with that yarn!
Rachel - I am really considering making her a mini-beret. Jonathan thinks I'm crazy...
Andrea, my grandmother and mother taught me to knit when I was little, but I didn't really like it - I liked to sew much more. They were both great, prolific, fast knitters, but when you start, it's clumsy and slow and takes a long time to make anything. Later on I took it up again, with more enthusiasm, but I generally make small things I can finish quickly. Now I often see women sitting around together in yarn shops, helping each other - and most shops also give classes. There are also good YouTube videos, but it really helps to have someone show you the basics in person.
Robbie what a poignant and amusing comment! My father was taught to knit by a nurse in Belgium during the war; he was laid up with a busted leg and there was nothing to do...but I suspect ulterior motives, as he never knitted afterwards!
Tom, looking back through Lucy's blog recently I saw a picture of you knitting with a woman on a park bench! The truth is that knitting and reading don't go together, and if faced with the choice I'll choose to read. TV and knitting: well, yes, but maybe that's why I don't do so much. More power to Lucy, Alison, Lucy B., Rachel R. and all my favorite knitting friends who seem to manage to turn out project after project!
Posted by: Beth | November 07, 2013 at 09:37 AM
I have always adored berets, and your new green one is so "you". One of the beret's other great qualities is that it rolls up and stores in a pocket or purse. (The Canadian Forces stow theirs in their chest pockets.)
@ Andrea: My son learned to knit watching You Tube videos. Yarn stores often have evening classes for free or nominal cost, as do some community centres. And there's always asking sweetly of a kind friend.
Posted by: Duchesse | November 07, 2013 at 04:22 PM
The Cat In The Hat Redux, lol......best cat pics ever. Fabulous colors, interesting knitting descriptions. I tend to think of knitters as magicians.
Posted by: mike | November 07, 2013 at 09:36 PM
Awww. This made me laugh! That green is really a special color, isn't it.
Posted by: Hattie | November 08, 2013 at 02:14 AM
Beth, j'adore the last two photos especially but all are wonderful. That cat is outrageously cute and obviously owns you.
Posted by: Natalie | November 09, 2013 at 02:05 PM