Beret blah...

After finishing this skirt, I had a bit of leftover fabric, and thought I'd made a beret for myself.  I found a tutorial on YouTube, and whipped the thing up in an evening. 

In the end, I didn't like it and stuck it straight in the Goodwill pile.  Nevertheless, here's the making-of documentation, so I can do better next time! 

The video instructs you first to cut two circles of 26cm diameter.  One circle is the top of the beret, but under that you need a ring of the same diameter that has a hole in the center for the brim to be sewn to.  So the second circle needs to have its center cut out. 

Math was my first hurdle.  I found the equation in step 10 of the video (timestamp 1:34) super confusing because it's not written the way algebra is taught in US schools. Apparently, in some parts of the world, commas and periods are used opposite of how Americans use them.  For instance, "one thousand two hundred thirty-four and a half" is written 1,234.5 in the US and a few other places, but written 1.234,5 in other places.  I don't know where they do what, but it threw me for a loop in the video because I couldn't figure out why there was a comma in the equation.  

This is what the video said: "circumference/(2*3,14)-1==57/(2*3,14)-1=8cm".  Yikes!  After a few minutes of refreshing my memory of  ̶5̶t̶h̶ ̶g̶r̶a̶d̶e̶ ̶m̶a̶t̶h̶ 7th grade math, I translated it to "[circumference/(2*3.14)]-1" where the circumference is in centimeters and the -1 at the end is -1cm (for seam allowance)

My own head is 57 cms, and you do Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction, so the math breaks down thus:
[57/(2*3.14)]-1
[57/6.28]-1
9.076-1
8.076

Round to 8 cms.  (After all that, I got the same numbers as the example, and followed their instructions.) 

My brim, I cut on the bias because that's how the pattern piece fit on the fabric.  I could have cut it on grain had I been willing to cut it in two pieces and seam them together, but I thought bias would look cool. 

hat top and ring

hat brim

Then, because bias cut fabric stretches funny, I stabilized the brim by cutting a piece of muslin on grain and flat-lining the gray fabric with it. 

muslin flat-lining brim

Berets can be floppy or crisp.  I wanted a slightly crisp look, so I flat-lined the ring part with some plastic mesh I have. 

Then, I used some more scraps to embellish the brim and ring pieces.  Just some pleasant hand-sewing while watching a BBC drama about Edward VII of England! 

plastic mesh for structure

I put the hat together the same way I did my niece's berets, where the lining and hat are sewn in one step, then the brim sewn on.  Easy!  

The results?  The hat was cute and fit my head perfectly... but the 26cm diameter was not wide enough, and the hat looked like a kids' hat on an adult head.  Very awkward.  So I am giving it away, and I will make another, later, with larger circles. 

At least I figured out the math!