Morning Glory or Petunia?

After a rather late night (early morning?) of knitting frenzy, brought on by the rather imprudent consumption of a full pot of freshly brewed coffee far too late in the day, I have yet another FO to add to the rapidly growing list.

I can only ascribe my frenzied finishing fest to the somewhat frantic feeling that the school year is approaching far too rapidly. All my mental summer "to do" lists seem to be reproaching me for my lack of due diligence. The chaos in the combined craft studio/school room is nagging me to get some of the bags and boxes of UFO's cleaned up and out of the way before the annual pre-school cleansing occurs. And last, but not least, is the knowledge that knitting and crafting time will decrease significantly once the school year begins, leaving me with a feeling akin to panic.

Ah, well, it makes for better blog fodder, I guess.

Meet my latest creation. A beret made from Rowan Summer Tweed received from the Knitting Gnome Exchange. My first impression of the finished hat was that the top looks like the underside of a morning glory or a petunia, hence the title of the post. Morning Glory is a lovely name but has been used so often that I'm leaning towards calling it Petunia but I'm just too sleep deprived to make a decision.

Those of you with long memories will recall a statement about adding the beads that came with the package to this beret but I found them to be a bit too heavy for the structure of the beret. I've set the beads aside for another project, so stay tuned.

It was obvious early on that I would not have enough green to finish the beret, so additional yarn was sought. Alas, I couldn't find the same color in the LYS but the two shades of purple were just too pretty not to purchase and use in the design. Since I was making this pattern up as I went along, I was not afraid to experiment.

I based the shaping of the beret on this pattern. I'm not a fan of stripes most of the time, so to incorporate both colors of purple, I decided to include two rows of fair isle 1x1 checkerboard. I think it effectively blurs the lines a little, making the stripe pattern far more intriguing. It is subtle but the tweediness of the yarn enhances the haziness of the borders.

If I were to do it over, I would start with the darker color against the green first and perhaps vary the stripe width to further the illusion of a flower. Since it was after midnight when the color changes started occurring and I was tired, along with the fact that I didn't "see" the flower until the green "stem" was added, I think I can be excused for not getting it perfect the first time.

I do still need to get some stretchier yarn to make a band for the inside of the ribbing. The lack of memory and elasticity of the silk/cotton blend makes this absolutely necessary before the hat can be worn.

Oh, darn, guess I'll have to make another trip to the yarn shop . . . You know how much I hate that - NOT!