Way earlier this year my sister asked me to knit her a beret out of bamboo yarn. I bought some at Yarn Garden when I was in PDX in May. Then it sat in my stash. Christmas rolls around and I decided I’m going to make this for her. So I searched for a pattern and came up with the Urban Necessity Tam on MagKnits designed by Subway Knitter. They don’t show the back of the beret on the Magknits site, so it’s at the left. Also, the charts are missing from magknits, but you can find them on subwayknitter.com.
Back to my project…Now I know that bamboo is a drapey fiber with no elasticity so I’m wasn’t sure how it was going to work. Swatching revealed to me that ribbing was not going work that well. So I picked up some black sewing elastic but that was a major pain to work with.
I finally decided to knit it all on size 4 needles which is a few sizes smaller than the recommended for the Classic Elite Bam Boo yarn I was using. I knit a size large, which might have been a bit bigger than needed. It’s a very slouchy beret and I had intended on weaving the elastic through the ribbing, but my sister says she likes it loose.
I love the snowflake pattern on the top. I added a little icord “nipple” on the top to make it more fronch. I’m going to have to borrow that snowflake pattern for shaping the crown on some of the beanies I knit.
Overall I like the yarn, it’s lustrous and soft. However I did use 3 skeins for this so it’s heavy (think cotton) and rather splitty.
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