A flat red beret in twenty rounds, made to sit on a small crocheted penguin. It is one of the simplest shapes there is — a disc that grows to 78 stitches, stays flat for three rounds, then closes down to a 57-stitch band — and the only thing that makes it a beret rather than a hat is the gauge.
That is the whole trick, and the pattern says it plainly: work the beret on a hook one size larger than the toy. A 1.75 mm hook for the penguin, 2 mm for the beret. The looser fabric is what lets the disc fall sideways instead of standing up like a dome, and it is the difference between a beret and a beanie on a 5 cm head.
There is also a small chain tab, worked from the starting tail, which sits on the side of the beret — the little detail that reads as a beret’s stem. All twenty rounds are written out below.
What you need
- Yarn: sport weight cotton, 160 m per 50 g, in red
- Hook: 2 mm — one size up from the hook used for the penguin
- Notions: needle, stitch marker, scissors
Worked in continuous rounds. US terms.
Abbreviations
mr magic ring, sc single crochet, inc increase, dec decrease, ch chain, slst slip stitch, st stitch.
The beret
Leave a long starting tail — it becomes the tab at the end.
- R1: 6 sc in mr (6)
- R2: 6 inc (12)
- R3: (sc, inc) ×6 (18)
- R4: (2 sc, inc) ×6 (24)
- R5: (3 sc, inc) ×6 (30)
- R6: (4 sc, inc) ×6 (36)
- R7: (5 sc, inc) ×6 (42)
- R8: (6 sc, inc) ×6 (48)
- R9: (7 sc, inc) ×6 (54)
- R10: (8 sc, inc) ×6 (60)
- R11: (9 sc, inc) ×6 (66)
- R12: (10 sc, inc) ×6 (72)
- R13: (11 sc, inc) ×6 (78)
- R14–16: 78 sc — 3 rounds
- R17: (11 sc, dec) ×6 (72)
- R18: (10 sc, dec) ×6 (66)
- R19: (9 sc, dec) ×6 (60)
- R20: (18 sc, dec) ×3, slst (57)
Cut the thread and weave it in.
Six increases a round, twelve rounds running, is a lot of increase rounds in a row — that is what makes the disc so wide relative to its depth. If your disc starts to cup upwards instead of lying flat, your gauge is too tight, not the pattern: go up a hook size rather than adding stitches.
The tab
Using the long starting tail, ch 6, then work 5 slst back along the chain from the second chain from the hook. Weave the thread in. Position the tab on the side of the beret, at the edge of the crown, and sew it down with the same tail.
Fitting it
- Too small: add a round. Each increase round adds 6 stitches, so one more round gives 84 and roughly 3 mm more radius.
- Too floppy: go down half a hook size for the band rounds only — R17 to R20 — so the beret grips without the disc losing its drape.
- Position: a beret sits tilted. Sew it on at an angle, with more of the disc over one side, rather than centred.
Notes
The last round is the one that catches people out: it is not a multiple of six. (18 sc, dec) three times gives 57, one stitch more than the six-stitch rhythm would suggest, because the band is meant to be a little looser than a pure decrease round.
The same twenty rounds work as a beret for a doll of about 10 cm — with a 1.5 mm hook and finer cotton the disc comes out at roughly half the diameter.
More wearables and small clothes: Sorting Hat is the shaped hat, Christmas Gnome Cardigan is the garment, and Güell Girls Sweater is the colourwork sweater. Everything is on the patterns page.
Pattern source: Penguin Beret.
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