The Generic Knit Beret
Dec. 30th, 2005 03:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lwoodI babble, very geekily, about knitting in this one. If you don't care, don't click. On the other hand, I have filled with enough funny bits, referencing everything from Mario Brothers to the USMC to Aleister Crowley, for a few chuckles even if you don't speak yarn.
Either way you've been warned.
Looking at the hats that have popped up like so many mushroom caps after a rain, I have seen many bog-standard watch caps, and I don't like 'em. Watch caps are the basic knitted caps your mother jammed on your head in the winter: they're stretchy cylinders, rounded off with varying care at one end, turned up at the other. If you look at them technically, you're looking at stockinette/stocking or maybe 1x1 rib. They fit tightly, hooray, but they moosh your hair and look yucky.
Then you have the beret, which I'll use as the generic collective for berets, tam o'shanters, and their cousins. Here, the brim fits against the head (more or less), and then the crown of the hat blouses out above the brim converging either in a flat top, a simple loop, pompom, topknot, or other doodad. Done poorly, though, you run the distinct danger of looking like, well...
See that? My first attempt at a beret looked like that. In fact, if you consider that Toad's hat has covered his head and his face has moved to his neck, you're pretty much spot-on. We're all in a better world now that I unravelled it. Nothing to see here, these aren't the droids you're looking for, move along.
While the average human head runs 21.5 inches in circumference, hair may provide a challenging obstacle, increasing this figure (hi,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
emberleo!) considerably. Moreover, you don't actually want the brim to be 21.5 (or whatever) inches, because that means a hat that falls over your head and lo, we're back to the Toad, or maybe Dumb Donald from Fat Albert.
Secondly, knit a swatch! Know your gauge! Yes this is the most damn boringest thing ever. Both the Noro Silk Garden and my Cascade 220 knit, for me, knit 5 stitches and seven rows to the inch on US 7 needles.
Now you can do... math. 21.5 * 5 = 105, but to avoid that Dumb Donald look, knock 20-25% off of that -- I went to 81 forhyndla, but on US 9 needles; this knit up fairly loose, but I think acceptably so.
Either way, your weapon of choice will be a 16" circular needle in size needed to obtain gauge. and then some double-point needles in the same size for when it gets tight at the end. Do not fear the double-point needles! They are your friends! I used to feel, as many do, that once you start down the double-pointed path, forever will it dominate your destiny, but...
*spies pile of mittens and mitten requests, which require dpn and extend well past winter at this point*
Okay, maybe a teensy bit of overshadowing of destiny. But not domination as such...
You'll also want either some stitch markers or some snips of yarn in a contrasting colour to tie around the needle for the same purpose--make sure one of these markers is different from the rest, it's your end-of-row marker.
The Brim:
The standard generic beret assumes that you'll just knit stocking/stockinette for a few inches, which will give you a brim that curls up.... why? I don't know. I prefer rib here--most will like 1x1 or 2x2, in which case you should CO 80 instead of 81.
I was going to use 3x3 rib, but that only works evenly if you CO a multiple of 6. Instead, I went with 3x3 seed (it's as painless as rib once you know it; just perl atop knit and knit atop purl).
Cast that on, slip on a marker to note the start of the row, then join to work in the round. Proceed in whatever pattern you like for your brim for about 1.25"--you are now done with the brim.
Do not try this on. Do not even look at this in terms of something that will go on your head, because it's still stuck around a 16" needle, and your head isn't that small. You will despair and wonder how this could possibly EVER fit a human being above the age of 12.
So don't try it on! Wait until you're into the decreases, then this will make sense, m'kay?
The Increase Row:
Next, you want to poof the hat out, and how much is up to you, we'll call this "poof factor". Poof factor 1 is no poof at all - bah! Poof Factor 2 makes the crown twice as big around as the brim, which if you're not careful is on the Road to Toadville. I picked 1.5.
Once you've decided your Poof Factor, multiply that by your original number of cast on stitches: this is how many stitches you'll want to have in your increase row by the time you're done. If you're going to cruise at Poof Factor 2.0, you want to k1, inc 1 all the way around. PF 1.5 means that you k2, inc 1, all the way around, and so on.
The next decision to make is how many "spokes" to have on the completed hat. Once you start decreasing, it'll be at evenly spaced places around the hat, radially, like spokes on a wheel. Any number five or higher should work; patterns I saw seemed to like 6 and 8. I chose 9. You need to choose that now so whatever number of stitches are on your needles after the increase row is a multiple of the number of spokes you want. So, starting at 9 with a Poof Factor of 1.5 starts at 121.5 stitches, but if I want nine spokes on the hat, I have to take that up to 126 stitches around to get to the next multiple of nine. Sprinkle these extra increases around the brim as you work, or fudge them into the first decrease row by simply not doing some of the decreases.
Which increase to use is up to you. If you use one of the increases that leaves a small hole in the work (yarn over, non-twisted make), this will leave you room to run a drawstring later for a bit of cinching insurance, so I'd recommend that.
Knit in stocking/stockinette/justplainknit for another inch-and-change: the total height of the work will now be 2-3" (mine was an additional 9 rows, total height at this point of 2.57").
Decrease section:
Now saddle up the ponies for the decreases! You will be decreasing radially, at a series of points around the hat. The more often you decrease, the more steeply your hat will rise (more like a watch cap), and the more rarely you decrease, the flatter the hat will be, but the more yarn you'll use. As I chose to decrease at 9 places around the crown every three rows; it crowned in a gentle dome and used just shy of one 100m (109 1/3 yd) skein of Noro Silk Garden. Other patterns decrease every four or even more rows; it's up to you.
Knit a row, setting your stitch markers as you go. Remember that number of spokes you picked? You need that many minus one (the start of your row is a spoke) markers. How often to set them is a matter of number of stitches on the needles divided by how many spokes you want -- for this hat, 126 stitches divided by 9 spokes means that I set a marker every fourteen stitches (126/9=14). If you need to fudge in a few extra stitches to make a spoke multiple, you can either sprinkle them in here as twisted makes (the kind that don't make holes) or by simply not doing some of the decreases in your first decrease row.
Once you've set the markers and finished a row that's now hopefully at your target number, you're ready for your first decrease row. Slip the end-of-row marker, ssk, knit to the next marker, slip it, ssk, and so on around.
Oh, fine, you can k2tog if ssk is Scary. Sheesh -- it'll make a slightly different look in the finished hat.
Then knit for another couple-few rows (again, the more often you decrease the more pronounced the dome), then another decrease, and so on. Somewhere in here, you'll be able to test the fit of the brim on your head, but to not judge the shape of the hat at this point, just test the fit. You won't get a good idea of the shape at this point anyway.
Once you get to 45-55 stitches on the needle, this is the point where all your rows will be decrease rows, with no more spacers. As you can see that it's soon going to be pretty hard to keep chugging stitches around that circular needle. If you had a long time between decreases, you may be safe simply cutting a 12-18" long tail, running it through all the loops, and drawing it tight to close the hat.
If not, you're going to have to knit smaller than any circular needle can handle. This is why double-points were invented.
NO! No screaming! Double points are your friends! FRIENDS! Put down the pick-axe!
Figure out how many stitches you have on your needles right now. You will be splitting that among three or four of your set of five double-point needles. It's better if you have a nice multiple of 3 or 4 on your hands (if you had 6, 8, or 9 spokes this is guaranteed), but it's okay if it's not; you can always move stitches from one needle to another (don't look at me like that--remember? dpns are friends, not chopsticks! right.) as you decrease things. At this point, I had 54 stitches, easily split among three needles.
Do a decrease row (slip marker, ssk, k to marker, repeat around), knitting from the circular needle onto the dpn's, which are your friends. Now you have three or four needles holding the stitches that were on the circular needle, and one or two spare dpn's from your package.
Take the spare needle and knit another decrease row, knitting from the 3-4 active needles onto one of your spares. As you knit all stitches from one of your active needles onto the spare, this gives you a new "spare" needle, which you work in, making a new spare needle, and so on around.
Congratulations, you just knit on double-pointed needles! See, was that so bad?
Keep doing decrease rows until you have only one stitch left between each pair of markers, and make a decision about what goes on top:
For a Flat Top:
If you only have 100m of yarn, this may be your only option. Cut your yarn, leaving a 6" tail, run it through all the loops, take the loops off the needles, then pull tight to draw the hat closed.
For a Topknot:
This will take about seven feet or yarn (assuming worsted or similar). (k2tog, k) across, leaving you with 2/3 the number of stitches you had a row ago, and knit all of these onto one needle. Knit this little tail back and forth for (3 1/2-4"). Cut a 6" tail, draw through all loops and draw tight. Tie this toptail into an overhand knot, and use the end of the yarn to tack the topknot in place, lest it flap about unseemly.
For a Pompom:
This will take as much yarn as you're willing to throw at it, which means it'll use up lots of leftover yarn. I've never made one, but here are some reasonable instructions, restated here and here as well.
Weave in all your ends, and consider to block, or not to block, into a more beret-like shape:
Optional Further Shaping:
Felting: The "traditional" French beret is felted within an inch of its life; you'll note that this one is not. If you want to have a felted beret, you'll have to felt your test swatch (remember the test swatch? this here is a song about a test swatch), see how much that shrunk, and apply that proportion backwards to your hat pattern to see how much bigger to make the pre-felting hat to achive the post-felting size you want. Make sure your yarn can take felting before you throw it in the washing machine with your whites on hot, or You'll Regret It. Wool will felt, superwash won't, wool blends will react... variably. Did I mention a swatch and the testing thereof? I did? Great, my butt's covered, then.
That Distinctive Beret Ledge: Wash your hat or, if your yarn care instructions say "Oh, gods, under no circumstances wash this thing, lest your offspring be cursed unto seven generations", gently dampen it with a spray bottle or by patting it with a wet hand. If whatever yarn it is absolutely cannot take water, why did you make it into a hat to wear outside? Stretch your hat over a dinner plate and allow to dry thoroughly. If your yarn is reasonably thick, especially if it has a lot of wool, "thoroughly" means "at least overnight, probably longer".
The Drawstring: This is particularly useful if you used an increase that leaves holes, e.g. yo or the non-twisted m1, like I suggested above. A drawstring will provide a little more tension if your hat winds up a smidge big, without the wuss-out option of sewing in elastic--the hat will outlive your elastic, but a drawstring won't lose the stretch it doesn't have, and if it's not forever, it's at least readily replaceable. DRAWSTRINGS ARE GOOD ENOUGH FOR THE MARINES! EVERY (unprintable) BERET IN THE CORPS HAS A DRAWSTRING! ARE YOU SAYING A DRAWSTRING IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU, MAGGOT!? DROP AND GIVE ME NINETY! ...ahem, sorry about that, won't happen again. Make a drawstring in one of these ways:
Any way you achieve this--and no, a single strand of yarn is not among them--thread through the holes in the increase row, put hat on head, draw string tight, and tie.
NB: Noro Silk Garden will stretch considerably when it gets wet. I'm still drying the hat; it was soft-fitting but perfect before I washed it! Noooooo.......! But a drawstring should make it all come out right in the end and avoid Toad Hall (see above).
Conclusion:
Ooh! You made a hat! Walk around and show it off to the praise of your admirers!
Resources:
This was extrapolated from several free patterns around the web, including Knitting Fiend's HK Beret Pattern Generator. Topknot design from Lion Brand® Yarn's Knitted Beret pattern, excerpted as fair use. Pompom sources as noted in text.
-- Lorrie
Either way you've been warned.
Looking at the hats that have popped up like so many mushroom caps after a rain, I have seen many bog-standard watch caps, and I don't like 'em. Watch caps are the basic knitted caps your mother jammed on your head in the winter: they're stretchy cylinders, rounded off with varying care at one end, turned up at the other. If you look at them technically, you're looking at stockinette/stocking or maybe 1x1 rib. They fit tightly, hooray, but they moosh your hair and look yucky.
Then you have the beret, which I'll use as the generic collective for berets, tam o'shanters, and their cousins. Here, the brim fits against the head (more or less), and then the crown of the hat blouses out above the brim converging either in a flat top, a simple loop, pompom, topknot, or other doodad. Done poorly, though, you run the distinct danger of looking like, well...
See that? My first attempt at a beret looked like that. In fact, if you consider that Toad's hat has covered his head and his face has moved to his neck, you're pretty much spot-on. We're all in a better world now that I unravelled it. Nothing to see here, these aren't the droids you're looking for, move along.
While the average human head runs 21.5 inches in circumference, hair may provide a challenging obstacle, increasing this figure (hi,
emberleo!) considerably. Moreover, you don't actually want the brim to be 21.5 (or whatever) inches, because that means a hat that falls over your head and lo, we're back to the Toad, or maybe Dumb Donald from Fat Albert. Secondly, knit a swatch! Know your gauge! Yes this is the most damn boringest thing ever. Both the Noro Silk Garden and my Cascade 220 knit, for me, knit 5 stitches and seven rows to the inch on US 7 needles.
Now you can do... math. 21.5 * 5 = 105, but to avoid that Dumb Donald look, knock 20-25% off of that -- I went to 81 for
hyndla, but on US 9 needles; this knit up fairly loose, but I think acceptably so.Either way, your weapon of choice will be a 16" circular needle in size needed to obtain gauge. and then some double-point needles in the same size for when it gets tight at the end. Do not fear the double-point needles! They are your friends! I used to feel, as many do, that once you start down the double-pointed path, forever will it dominate your destiny, but...
*spies pile of mittens and mitten requests, which require dpn and extend well past winter at this point*
Okay, maybe a teensy bit of overshadowing of destiny. But not domination as such...
You'll also want either some stitch markers or some snips of yarn in a contrasting colour to tie around the needle for the same purpose--make sure one of these markers is different from the rest, it's your end-of-row marker.
The Brim:
The standard generic beret assumes that you'll just knit stocking/stockinette for a few inches, which will give you a brim that curls up.... why? I don't know. I prefer rib here--most will like 1x1 or 2x2, in which case you should CO 80 instead of 81.
I was going to use 3x3 rib, but that only works evenly if you CO a multiple of 6. Instead, I went with 3x3 seed (it's as painless as rib once you know it; just perl atop knit and knit atop purl).
Cast that on, slip on a marker to note the start of the row, then join to work in the round. Proceed in whatever pattern you like for your brim for about 1.25"--you are now done with the brim.
Do not try this on. Do not even look at this in terms of something that will go on your head, because it's still stuck around a 16" needle, and your head isn't that small. You will despair and wonder how this could possibly EVER fit a human being above the age of 12.
So don't try it on! Wait until you're into the decreases, then this will make sense, m'kay?
The Increase Row:
Next, you want to poof the hat out, and how much is up to you, we'll call this "poof factor". Poof factor 1 is no poof at all - bah! Poof Factor 2 makes the crown twice as big around as the brim, which if you're not careful is on the Road to Toadville. I picked 1.5.
Once you've decided your Poof Factor, multiply that by your original number of cast on stitches: this is how many stitches you'll want to have in your increase row by the time you're done. If you're going to cruise at Poof Factor 2.0, you want to k1, inc 1 all the way around. PF 1.5 means that you k2, inc 1, all the way around, and so on.
The next decision to make is how many "spokes" to have on the completed hat. Once you start decreasing, it'll be at evenly spaced places around the hat, radially, like spokes on a wheel. Any number five or higher should work; patterns I saw seemed to like 6 and 8. I chose 9. You need to choose that now so whatever number of stitches are on your needles after the increase row is a multiple of the number of spokes you want. So, starting at 9 with a Poof Factor of 1.5 starts at 121.5 stitches, but if I want nine spokes on the hat, I have to take that up to 126 stitches around to get to the next multiple of nine. Sprinkle these extra increases around the brim as you work, or fudge them into the first decrease row by simply not doing some of the decreases.
Which increase to use is up to you. If you use one of the increases that leaves a small hole in the work (yarn over, non-twisted make), this will leave you room to run a drawstring later for a bit of cinching insurance, so I'd recommend that.
Knit in stocking/stockinette/justplainknit for another inch-and-change: the total height of the work will now be 2-3" (mine was an additional 9 rows, total height at this point of 2.57").
Decrease section:
Now saddle up the ponies for the decreases! You will be decreasing radially, at a series of points around the hat. The more often you decrease, the more steeply your hat will rise (more like a watch cap), and the more rarely you decrease, the flatter the hat will be, but the more yarn you'll use. As I chose to decrease at 9 places around the crown every three rows; it crowned in a gentle dome and used just shy of one 100m (109 1/3 yd) skein of Noro Silk Garden. Other patterns decrease every four or even more rows; it's up to you.
Knit a row, setting your stitch markers as you go. Remember that number of spokes you picked? You need that many minus one (the start of your row is a spoke) markers. How often to set them is a matter of number of stitches on the needles divided by how many spokes you want -- for this hat, 126 stitches divided by 9 spokes means that I set a marker every fourteen stitches (126/9=14). If you need to fudge in a few extra stitches to make a spoke multiple, you can either sprinkle them in here as twisted makes (the kind that don't make holes) or by simply not doing some of the decreases in your first decrease row.
Once you've set the markers and finished a row that's now hopefully at your target number, you're ready for your first decrease row. Slip the end-of-row marker, ssk, knit to the next marker, slip it, ssk, and so on around.
Oh, fine, you can k2tog if ssk is Scary. Sheesh -- it'll make a slightly different look in the finished hat.
Then knit for another couple-few rows (again, the more often you decrease the more pronounced the dome), then another decrease, and so on. Somewhere in here, you'll be able to test the fit of the brim on your head, but to not judge the shape of the hat at this point, just test the fit. You won't get a good idea of the shape at this point anyway.
Once you get to 45-55 stitches on the needle, this is the point where all your rows will be decrease rows, with no more spacers. As you can see that it's soon going to be pretty hard to keep chugging stitches around that circular needle. If you had a long time between decreases, you may be safe simply cutting a 12-18" long tail, running it through all the loops, and drawing it tight to close the hat.
If not, you're going to have to knit smaller than any circular needle can handle. This is why double-points were invented.
NO! No screaming! Double points are your friends! FRIENDS! Put down the pick-axe!
Figure out how many stitches you have on your needles right now. You will be splitting that among three or four of your set of five double-point needles. It's better if you have a nice multiple of 3 or 4 on your hands (if you had 6, 8, or 9 spokes this is guaranteed), but it's okay if it's not; you can always move stitches from one needle to another (don't look at me like that--remember? dpns are friends, not chopsticks! right.) as you decrease things. At this point, I had 54 stitches, easily split among three needles.
Do a decrease row (slip marker, ssk, k to marker, repeat around), knitting from the circular needle onto the dpn's, which are your friends. Now you have three or four needles holding the stitches that were on the circular needle, and one or two spare dpn's from your package.
Take the spare needle and knit another decrease row, knitting from the 3-4 active needles onto one of your spares. As you knit all stitches from one of your active needles onto the spare, this gives you a new "spare" needle, which you work in, making a new spare needle, and so on around.
Congratulations, you just knit on double-pointed needles! See, was that so bad?
Keep doing decrease rows until you have only one stitch left between each pair of markers, and make a decision about what goes on top:
For a Flat Top:
If you only have 100m of yarn, this may be your only option. Cut your yarn, leaving a 6" tail, run it through all the loops, take the loops off the needles, then pull tight to draw the hat closed.
For a Topknot:
This will take about seven feet or yarn (assuming worsted or similar). (k2tog, k) across, leaving you with 2/3 the number of stitches you had a row ago, and knit all of these onto one needle. Knit this little tail back and forth for (3 1/2-4"). Cut a 6" tail, draw through all loops and draw tight. Tie this toptail into an overhand knot, and use the end of the yarn to tack the topknot in place, lest it flap about unseemly.
For a Pompom:
This will take as much yarn as you're willing to throw at it, which means it'll use up lots of leftover yarn. I've never made one, but here are some reasonable instructions, restated here and here as well.
Weave in all your ends, and consider to block, or not to block, into a more beret-like shape:
Optional Further Shaping:
Felting: The "traditional" French beret is felted within an inch of its life; you'll note that this one is not. If you want to have a felted beret, you'll have to felt your test swatch (remember the test swatch? this here is a song about a test swatch), see how much that shrunk, and apply that proportion backwards to your hat pattern to see how much bigger to make the pre-felting hat to achive the post-felting size you want. Make sure your yarn can take felting before you throw it in the washing machine with your whites on hot, or You'll Regret It. Wool will felt, superwash won't, wool blends will react... variably. Did I mention a swatch and the testing thereof? I did? Great, my butt's covered, then.
That Distinctive Beret Ledge: Wash your hat or, if your yarn care instructions say "Oh, gods, under no circumstances wash this thing, lest your offspring be cursed unto seven generations", gently dampen it with a spray bottle or by patting it with a wet hand. If whatever yarn it is absolutely cannot take water, why did you make it into a hat to wear outside? Stretch your hat over a dinner plate and allow to dry thoroughly. If your yarn is reasonably thick, especially if it has a lot of wool, "thoroughly" means "at least overnight, probably longer".
The Drawstring: This is particularly useful if you used an increase that leaves holes, e.g. yo or the non-twisted m1, like I suggested above. A drawstring will provide a little more tension if your hat winds up a smidge big, without the wuss-out option of sewing in elastic--the hat will outlive your elastic, but a drawstring won't lose the stretch it doesn't have, and if it's not forever, it's at least readily replaceable. DRAWSTRINGS ARE GOOD ENOUGH FOR THE MARINES! EVERY (unprintable) BERET IN THE CORPS HAS A DRAWSTRING! ARE YOU SAYING A DRAWSTRING IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU, MAGGOT!? DROP AND GIVE ME NINETY! ...ahem, sorry about that, won't happen again. Make a drawstring in one of these ways:
- Three-Part Braid: Cut three pieces of yarn, each half again as long as the circumference of your hat, and braid them together.
- I-Cord: Yes, you could make an I-cord, a knit cord that's only a few stitches around. I've never done that, as the only thing I have to do it with is dpn's, and wow that's annoying. Knitting dollies and similar allow I-Cord without Tears, soon to be available as a print-on-demand volume by the reincarnation of Aleister Crowley's bastard daughter. Don't worry if you didn't get that joke.
- CO/BO: You could cast on 1 1/3 times the stitches you originally cast on to make the hat (e.g. 99), then BO in knit, I think this looks ucky because I can't get the tension perfectly even all the way across, which really shows here, but if you can, great and I bow to your Superior Knit-Fu.
- Crochet: Make a chain of 1 1/3 times the number of stitches you cast on for your hat with a hook comparable in size to the needles you knitted the hat with (knitting needles were US 9? Go for an I crochet hook). I wouldn't leave that as it is, especially with unspun yarns that'll pull apart under tensile stress (e.g. Noro Silk Garden), but would turn around and sc back across,then weave it all in.
- Buy some lanyard. Cut it a few inches longer than the hat is around. Heed you the Wisdom of the Ancients in this: measure twice, cut once. Savvy?
- Screw all this, I'm buying some elastic Be that way, see if I care.
Any way you achieve this--and no, a single strand of yarn is not among them--thread through the holes in the increase row, put hat on head, draw string tight, and tie.
NB: Noro Silk Garden will stretch considerably when it gets wet. I'm still drying the hat; it was soft-fitting but perfect before I washed it! Noooooo.......! But a drawstring should make it all come out right in the end and avoid Toad Hall (see above).
Conclusion:
Ooh! You made a hat! Walk around and show it off to the praise of your admirers!
Resources:
This was extrapolated from several free patterns around the web, including Knitting Fiend's HK Beret Pattern Generator. Topknot design from Lion Brand® Yarn's Knitted Beret pattern, excerpted as fair use. Pompom sources as noted in text.
-- Lorrie
