Magenta Ishbel Beret

At last the magenta Ishbel beret is finished and blocking. This one has really fought me all of the way, I'm telling you. And I was wondering why when the laceweight was such a pleasure to knit. But I think, after a few days taking back lots of botched up knitting, and trying to reknit that I've worked it out.

Everything was fine until I started to decrease. Then I moved down to dpn's as the stitch count got too small for the circular. It seems the YO at the end of the last dpn kept 'dropping' the last stitch and when I went around the lace row, the pattern was out by one stitch. After all the ripping back, I carefully started to re-knit the pattern keeping this in mind and damn if the same thing didn't happen again! Even when I was looking for it! This got to really frustrating levels of crapness by late evening but I persevered and eventually got it cast off. Whew.

So why was the green teal beret not such a pain? Because I used two circulars instead of 4 double pins and the stitches couldn't fall off. Lesson learned.

I made one modification to the band - a picot edge instead of the straight edge. If you want to try it, just substitute the purl row with *YO, K2tog* for the whole row and you get the picot edge when you fold the band over. I thought it would work well with a bold coloured beret. If its going to be in your face anyway then why not:-)

Now all the hassles are over, I am beginning to warm to it again. I do love the colour and the picot edge and although the lace looks more dense in 4ply, it is still a very elegant pattern indeed - despite my sabotage attempts!

Although this is pink - and I love pink - I still think I like the green version better. I never really got into lace shawls and scarves before as they seemed to be long term projects and very time consuming at that, but I can see the appeal of delicate 2 ply yarns stretching out into wonderful cobwebs of pattern that are so elegant and sophisticated in their design and finish. A lovely sheen of silk and maybe beads? Mmm. I can see some more lace in my future.....