A Little Black Beret

I know that these posts have been heavy on the cute kid pictures, but what can I say?

I can't resist, alright!?

So my daughter received this awesome little coat as a hand-me-down from a friend.

Its so chic.. so grown up.. I thought a little beret would be the perfect compliment to the ensemble.

I knit this hat up in Karabella Aurora 8 yarn. It is quite springy and nice to work with. It blocks out surprisingly big which was a good thing in this case because the hat ended up being a little too small even after I increased the stitch count.

The hat pattern I used is called Pompon Beret out of the book Simply Baby by Debbie Bliss.

(It appears that I have a serious thing for D.B.)

And yes.. about that pattern name. Huh?? Am I a complete idiot or should it be called Pompom Beret? That being since the original pattern calls for a large pompom on the top of the hat. Or is it a pompon? Have I been calling pompons "pompoms" this whole time? Should I be embarrassed here?

Well I didn't care for it. The pompon/m that is.

I wanted something a little bit more dressy. So I crocheted a flower out of Rowan Kid Silk Haze remnants leftover from a horse.

I really like the ethereal look of the mohair. It adds a little extra style to the plain beret. Once the flower was crocheted, I finished it off with a rhinestone vintage button sewn right in the middle.

I've been using this crocheted flower pattern for centuries. It's my own adaptation of another flower pattern I found in a crochet book years.. I mean centuries.. ago.

So.. now you can make it too.

Crocheted Rose

Ch 4. Connect with slip st to first ch to form a ring.

Ch 1 (sc in ring, ch 6) 5 times. Join with slip st to first sc.

Ch 1 (1sc, 10 tr, 1sc) in each ch-6 space around. Join with slip st to first sc.

Ch 1, working in front of petals, sc around first sc on round 1, ch 4. (sc around next sc on round 1, ch 4) around. Join with slip st to first sc.

(1sc, 6 dc, 1sc) in each ch-4 space around. Join with slip st to first sc.

Ch 1 (sc around sc in front of petals ch 2) around. Join with slip st to first sc.

(1sc, 3 dc, 1sc) in each ch-2 space around.

Join with slip st to first sc.

Finish off. Pull tails of yarn to the back of the flower and use the tails to secure the flower to the knitted item. (With some flowers that Ive attached to hats, I have simply just tied the starting tail and ending tail together in a bow so that the recipient can easily remove the flower to change the look or for washing reasons.)

You can use any weight of yarn and any size hook. It will just produce different sizes and effects. For the mohair flower I used a D crochet hook to make the flower small. You can dress up the flower with a sparkly bead or button such as I have done here, or keep it casual with a nice plain button or knitted bobble.

As you can see.. She loves it! Shes been telling everyone that

"Mommy knitted me a hat with a beautiful flower and diamond."