Yarn-Along - A cute lacy beret!

Today, for Yarn-Along which I haven't linked up with in AGES, I am going to post the knitting project I have been working on lately - my lacy beret/slouchy hat!

I have been experimenting lately with making up my own patterns, starting with another beret that I knit a few months ago (I'll post pictures some other time). The reason I have been making my own patterns is because when I start my Etsy shop, I don't want to be selling a bunch of stuff from other people's patterns. I feel too guilty about it, especially if I don't see anything in the pattern about a copyright or if I'm not sure that copyright includes selling items made with the pattern. There's a lot less guilt in making something completely of my own design, and a lot more satisfaction!

Although I don't know if it's COMPLETELY of my own design. I get my patterns from a nifty little book called 400 Knitting Stitches - A complete dictionary of essential stitch patterns. I love this book! It has cable stitch patterns, lace stitch patterns, twisted stitch patterns.... it's awesome. All of the stitch patterns are written as if to knit flat, so I adapt them to be knit in the round. I also adapt them (for hats, anyways) to decrease near the top while still trying to keep a little bit of the pattern.

So, I've been knitting this hat for a few weeks now. I started with the band, which is a cable pattern that I got from the knitting stitch book. I knit 200 rows of this pattern - enough to fit my 22" circumference head. Then I picked up 240 stitches and began the lace pattern.

A close-up of the cable pattern I used for the band. It looks more creamy-yellowish
here but that's not the color it is in real life! I took the picture with bright sunlight
shining on it which I guess distorted the color. :P

I could have finished yesterday. But as I was decreasing happily - my decreasing was fitting with the lace pattern! - I discovered when I tried on the hat to see how it looked, that it was WAY TOO SLOUCHY.

(It's a kind of bad picture - my sister took it on her new camera with a "Posterized" setting
 which I tried to edit out, to no avail.)

Actually, in this picture it doesn't look as bad as it does in real life (except for not showing the lace pattern and looking like I cropped the beret out of the picture, leaving a beret-shaped white spot). But trust me. As I said to my mom, "It looks like a mushroom took over my head!" And even she agreed that it was too huge. And she's usually the one who says that my projects aren't as bad as I think they are!

Luckily, I won't have to rip out the stitches ALL THE WAY BACK TO THE BEGINNING. I think that I'll be able to "only" rip out 20 rows or so and go back to when it looked less slouchy and really really cute! It would have been really painful to have to go back all the way to the beginning - but it's also a really slow painfulness to have to rip carefully, stitch by stitch, making sure that I don't drop any. Considering that it's about 250 stitches on the needles - the pattern calls for increases every other round. I had been hoping to have it finished before we left on vacation, and I had thought I was going to finish it yesterday, but that obviously didn't happen.

I WAS NEARLY FINISHED!!!!

Here's a close-up of the stitch pattern. The lace and the slipped stitches kind of
make diamond shapes!

Sooo yeah. Yesterday evening I began the slow, painful process of ripping out stitches, stitch by stitch. Luckily, when I FINALLY get to the point where I can stop ripping, I'll be able to start decreasing again right away. Maybe I'll finish it ON vacation....?

As for books I'm reading..... well, does my French textbook count? :P Well, I'm kind of reading a randomness of books. Lately I've been re-reading old favorites, such as The Scarlet Pimpernel. But mostly I've been reading my school textbooks. :P

Thanks to Ginny at Small Things for hosting Yarn-Along!