I've been knitting for close to 20 years now, but because my learning curve involved a 12-year stint where I couldn't figure out how to do a purl stitch, I'm rather behind the other knitters for whom no pattern is too surprising or difficult to design and produce. When a slouchy beret pattern I'd been ogling for years disappeared from the internet (only to be replaced by the designer's updated- and I think less awesome- version), I decided to strike out on my own and my anxieties about design be damned! After all, hats aren't THAT hard...are they?
As it turns out, they're not. The hat is worked from the brim up in seed stitch (knit one, purl one for row one, and purl one, knit one for row two)), with all the increases happening right after the brim itself, so you wind up with immediate and effective slouch. I improvised it by estimating the number of stitches I'd need to make the brim fit my head, and that was made easier by having knit other hats from written patterns in the past. With a bulky-weight yarn and size 7 needles, I found the right fit at 76 stitches. I did knit two, purl two ribbing for about an inch, and then the increases were incredibly straightforward: when I was ready to slouch it up, I did K1FB (meaning knit a stitch, and then knit into the back of the stitch before pulling it off your left needle) on each knit stitch in the pattern. I had to add on an extra stitch at the end by doing the same with the last purl stitch, because seed stitch in the round is easiest with an odd number of stitches, but that's optional for anyone else making this hat. And from there, you do seed stitch until the desired length or slouch of your hat has been reached!
The only challenging thing about this hat was doing the decreases. The way seed stitch works is by creating a predictable texture, so decreasing in pattern is important if you want your hat to look even all the way up. That being said, however, you can't simply thread your yarn through 130+ stitches and cinch them together without creating an unbearably puckered top! So here's the complex explanation of what I did:
For the first decrease round, I worked seven stitches in pattern and then worked the next two stitches (eight and nine) together. For example, if my round had started with a knit stitch, it would look like K1, P1, K1, P1, K1, P1, K1, P2tog. This got repeated for the entire round, and then the next round was worked in the basic seed stitch without any decreases. The challenge was that this resulted in some places where there were two knit stitches "on top of" each other instead of having a purl stitch on top of a knit stitch. Because having two knit stitches on top of each other was far more disruptive to the overall seed stitch look than having two purl stitches on top of each other, I changed my pattern every time it looked like that was going to happen. The result is that the decrease rounds are much more difficult to write out as a pattern than to improvise. If you feel confident in your ability to play it by ear, though, and keep in mind that the bumps of the purl stitches look better than the Vs of knit stitches when making something in seed stitch, you'll be fine.
Numerically, NOT stitch-wise, this is what it looked like:
Round 1: K7, K2tog, repeat to end.
Round 2: Work in pattern.
Round 3: K7, K2tog, repeat to end.
Round 4: Work in pattern.
The nice thing is that the number and pattern of stitches balanced out nicely, so rows 3 and 4 of the decrease pattern worked out to be straightforward seed stitch without having to juggle what my working row looked like on top of the previous row. The basic decrease rhythm worked throughout the end of the hat, although every four rows I changed the number of stitches between decreases. So where (again, numerically, not stitch-pattern-wise) on Rounds 1 and 3 I would K2tog on every 8th stitch, on Rounds 5 and 7 I would K2tog every 6th stitch, working the even rows "in pattern" as much as possible. Then on Rounds 9 and 11 I did K2tog every 4th stitch, again working the even rows "in pattern," and then on Rounds 13 and 15 I was doing K2tog on every other stitch. It sounds complex, but if you've ever knit a hat before, the concept of increasing the frequency of your decreases with every round should be somewhat familiar. After round 16, when I'd decreased down to about ten stitches (I don't remember exactly), I broke the yarn, threaded it through the remaining stitches, and pulled it tight. Voila! A beret!
A quick shout-out to my hometown, which produced the yarn I used in this project (a delicious, crunchy, good-feeling wool), and my sister, who gave it to me.
-Erica
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