Possessed to Knit: Handspun Lace Beret Completed

I spun up some alpaca seconds that Kate had given to me into a 2-ply yarn on my Schacht Cherry Matchless wheel. I had the alpaca processed into roving and rediscovered it as I unpacked my craft items after our move. I started off with the 11:1 ratio in double drive with a semi-worsted draw and switched to 9:1 ratio as I was getting too much twist. I made a center-pull ball and plied on the highest ratio, 22:1. I have read about to a larger whorl size for plying worsted, but with my Matchless, I ply even faster with my smallest super hi-speed whorl. On my Lendrum, I was limited to the whorl sizes on the plying head flyer. The Matchless set-up allows me to use any whorl for plying so I went with my fastest one.

I have to be careful when I spin alpaca as it can take a lot of twist and become wiry. I was disappointed, though, in the stitch definition for this pattern and wonder if a little more twist would have improved it. The hat is the Lace Beret from Vogue Knitting Fall 2009. I started off with my 2.00 mm (size 0) Addi bamboo dpns, but they a little short to handle so many stitches so I used my 40" Addi 2.00 mm Circular needles and the Magic Loop. I moved up to the 2.75 mm (size 2) Addi Lace 16" Circular needles for the patterned section of the hat switching to my 32" Addi Sock Rocket needles to work the Magic Loop for the crown . This project used 3.2 ounces of my 3.4 ounce ball of handspun alpaca. I'm glad I had enough for this fun project. Although I checked the errata for this pattern, there were a few mistakes in the chart. I did not recognize the wrongly placed purl stitches on rows 21 & 22. I did see something wrong on row 49 and then read all about it in the helpful Ravelry comments for this pattern.