I decided to knit this beret after seeing Amanda's from the wonderfully hilarious Bimble and Pimble blog. Seriously that chick cracks me up everytime! You gotta go take a look.
The hat is the Mathilde Hat pattern by Andi Satterlund of Untangling Knots. It was a pretty easy project for someone who has basic knitting know how and has access to Google at any given time. I had never knitted from a pattern before, had knitted a basic scarf, and had really no trouble. Sure, I had no idea what M1 and SSP and SSK were, but my friend Google came to the rescue. In particular, I have to recommend knittinghelp.com which is awesomely awesome in terms of how-to videos. And as this pattern is available on Ravelry (a free site for knitters and crocheters) I took advantage of their forums to answer a few other queries. Those knitters get back to you within minutes of posting a question! BAM! Everytime I log on to that site there are at least a couple of thousand members on line, and they are hugely happy to help. Check out the site, it's well worth it.
Also a big shout out to Amanda who helped answer all my questions and was pretty much my very own personal cheersquad throughout the project. We had a bit of a knit-along whilst Amanda got started on her second Mathilde.
You know it is kind of amazing that you start with this...
And end up with this...
As my husband says "That's a whole lotta knots"...
I apologise for the appalling photography here. Red is not a good background for blue, red is not a good background for blue. Oh and some colour balancing between the shots could have helped. Ah well...