FO: Uni Beret makes me say "oui!"

I have such mixed feelings about berets. On one hand, they can be very stylish and chic. On the other hand, they can look foppish and, as my friend Knithound found out, "like a feedbag". (Whatever. She looks regal in it when she's not trying to rob banks.) I approach beret-making with much trepidation. They take up twice the amount of yarn as a regular beanie hat, and they usually take about twice the time. Beret= neigh.

The solution:



Yarn that is thick and roving-like. You lose a bit of the drape, but it only took me a hair over an hour to finish a hat. If it looked like I was about to run away and join the French Circus, it would't be a huge time loss.

Also, I really needed a quick pick-me-up since all I've been plugging away at have been eye-straining chart-reading cable and lace projects. Big projects. They have ceased to be fun, and I usually put them down and forget my place on a weekly basis. I should break this cycle, but I am way too committed to it at this point. I want to making no visible progress on my cable sweater FOREVER. I prefer it that way.

Here it is, the Urchin beret:



Except I prefer to call it "Uni", since that's what it's called in sushi form.



It's a bit heavy and warm for the summer. Quite a bit. Also, it pissed me off to no end that it took almost a week to dry after blocking since it wouldn't stop raining. I couldn't get anything to dry at all, and at the end of the two-week rainstorm we had that is called "Springtime" everything smelled like musty grossness of doom and gloom. I sprayed down everything with tea tree oil once I could get a dry day. I was seriously worried that a mushroom forest would have popped up in the bathroom if I didn't spray something.



A floppy fun head-covering in an hour.

The specs:

I used less than 1 skeins of Classic Elite Soft Chunky Yarn. It's only 83 yards to a skein, so it's a good use of most of one. The pattern is called the "Urchin Beret" from "Twinkle's Weekend Knits". I used size 15 needles. Bigger is really better when Instant Gratification is needed.