Shaded Beret Workbasket August 1973

I'm still sticking with the 1970s. There are so many interesting patterns! This week I have a beret from the August 1973 issue of Workbasket Magazine. I was pretty skeptical it was going to look good. The pattern for seemed really simple though so I thought it was worth a try.

This pattern had three different sizes to choose from and used three different colors of worsted weight yarn and  G Hook. They suggested copper as the main color and rust and deep rose as the two colors at the very top of the hat to create a gradient look. I used three shades of orange that were in my remnant pile. 

The pattern included a gauge which was only sort of helpful. While I could get the row part of the gauge to match, the stitch gauge wouldn't match unless the row didn't. Since this had different sizes I decided I would do the medium one and it should still fit.

The directions were pretty good for the time frame. This means it tells you to increase evenly for a number of rounds instead of writing it all out. I typically end up writing a short-hand version on scratch paper to make sure I know where I am in the pattern.

This pattern is just a circle top, a slightly slower decrease after the top for a bit and then three rounds of no decreases for the headband part. 

I made a two changes to the pattern as I went. 
Change 1: As I was getting close to the end of the top part of the hat, I noticed that there wasn't anything included to give it the nice sharp bend you can see in the photo above so I did the row after the last increase in the back loops. 
Change 2: I should have done the large version. With the gauge problem I was having, the medium version was pretty tight. I skipped a decrease around the headband part to size that part up to a large.

Here's the final result: 

I think this would be cute in rainbow colors or other gradients and it turned out much better than I thought it would.  I'll give this a 4.5 out of 5. I'm taking off the half point for the gauge issue. I probably should have gone up a hook size and let the hat be a little taller but I don't usually have a problem with just one part of the gauge on single crochet stitches.

I think this photo has an odd school-photo vibe but we have rain storms today so taking photos on the deck would have been very wet.