2 Lacey Wool Berets

As I get more into spinning my own wool, I like to try different things and challenge myself. So naturally I decided to try spinning a skein as finely as I could.

I was very pleased how my wool turned out. But when I finished it, I realised I now needed a lovely lacey pattern to use it on. I wasn't sure I had the patience to make several of these finely spun skeins, nor the patience to knit or crochet a large item out of such fine wool. So I decided this lace beret pattern I found on Ravelry.

The first 3 rounds

The pattern is well written, and has a diagram, which helped me immensely! I had some trouble on round 4, but after reading the comments on her blog post about this pattern, I figured it out easily enough. When it got to the point of no more increasing, I realised mine was still way too small, so I repeated the increasing pattern for a few more rows.

Unfortunately it still ended up way to small for me, but I decided to finish it anyway and keep it for a gift for a child at a later date.

So I decided to make another, in a larger wool, with a few more modifications. I used my pink and blue hand spun wool, which is about an 8ply weight (but is only 2ply)

I used the same motif at the start, but then increased more with my chains to keep it mostly flat, then I did one more of the design rows, then did a few rows with no increasing, then some slight decreasing, until it fit my head. I finished the bottom edge off with only 1 row of single crochet. I also used the small bit of wool left to make a small pom pom and attached it to the top of the beret

And of course some silly selfies so you can see how it looks on!

I've kinda made this at the wrong time of the year, as we are just into spring, but luckily we are having a bit of a cold snap in this part of Australia, so I'll get a bit of wear out of it yet before summer hits!

Dixie