A Rose by any other name

Sorry, couldn’t miss my chance for a Shakespearean reference there, could I? Anyone other than me know which play (and character!) these lines are from without cheating? Yes, Google is cheating people!

 

In this case, I’d be refering to my new beret, knit to Rose Red by Ysolda Teague. And, the pun comes to life for me a bit because the yarn I used is another rose – Damask Rose Malabrigo Worsted.  My last yarn purchase before my self imposed ban was an order of Malabrigo, and I was gutted to recieve an email from the retailer saying that between me ordering and her packing the order, the last skein of damask rose had been sold. However,  I scored just over a skein (prewound into balls even!) from someone destashing on Ravelry, so that eased the pain. Even if the arrival of the parcel did evoke a “Not more yarn” from my husband when it arrived. 

I knew that I wanted to knit myself a hat with this gorgeous yarn. I wasn’t sure which hat though. See, the thing is, I’m not much of a hat person. I’m not sure if it comes from having to wear a hideous woolly school hat complete with pompom in my childhood, from having to wear hats to church in childhood, or the fact that a girl with straight hair and a fringe struggles to look good in a hat, however attractive. I’m just not sure. But I am all grown up, fringe grown out, and in need of something to ease the cold at a Saturday morning soccer match. And this isn’t unflattering, it’s just my hat complex that stops me from gushing.

 

So, my inital plan was to use something from my stash to knit up a plain beret to see if it suited, but my lovely yarn was calling to me. After some time browsing patterns on Ravelry, I decided upon Rose Red. I enjoyed my last Ysolda knit, and she has some seriously cute beret patterns. I love being able to look up other people’s projects on Rav and see how yarns look knit up in them, and so I decided that even though the pattern called for 8ply, I would likely get away with the worsted weight.

And I did! I love this beret, not sure how much I love hats, but OMG, if you want a stunning pattern, this has got to go on your list. The detail on the pattern is incredible – each row is written out as well as charted, so even though it is a challenging knit, you’d have to be even more of a moron with lace than I am to stuff this up.

Knit in the round from the centre outwards, you start with a stunning petal pattern, working your way outward to cables. Ysolda is one seriously talented designer – all the increases are incorporated into the petal pattern, and it just flows so easily. If having to watch your pattern constantly is easy anyway!

I actually think this is my first lace knit that I know is 100% correct -that’s right, I’m not aware of a single error or anything I ‘fudged’ to make my stitch count right – it really was intuitive, on the couple of occasions I had made an error, I was able to quickly see where it was an fix it. Yay me!

Have I gushed enough? I did some serious knitting on this puppy, and am so pleased that I did.  I’ll tell you more about my blocking adventures on this tomorrow, but suffice to say, I am rather pleased with this knit all in all! Even if the self-portrait hat photos are a little serious