Alpacas and Beanies

Posted on: 2025.09.30 // Tagged: crochet

I went to the state fair!

Last weekend, my boyfriend, my friends, and I went to the local state fair. It was a rainy, cloudy day, so we didn’t get the full state fair experience, but we did eat lots of deep fried food and see lots of animals! I, of course, was drawn to these adorable alpacas and the wool yarn selection.

I picked up this skein of gray tweed DK with rainbow silk nups! I’m thinking of turning it into a beanie or a pair of mittens for myself when the weather gets colder. I don’t work with wool often, but the softness of alpaca wool is unmatched.

A Bit About Beanie Construction

I’m on a hat-making kick for my crochet charity challenge. I received the pattern for Lola Crochets’ Camino Beanie for free ages ago as part of a promo/giveaway, and it’s easily become my new favorite hat pattern particularly for its short row construction.

I love fisherman beanies, but I always had issues with the construction of them in crochet patterns. To achieve the ribbed look with crochet, these beanies are usually worked in rows, seamed at the sides, and cinched at the top. The problem is that this often creates a lot of extra fabric at the crown, which looks lumpy and bulky—not the form-fitting look desired.

Some patterns try to remedy this by sewing shaped panels together, but this takes a lot of extra work to do neatly so the seams aren’t visible on the outside. Other patterns try to reduce the bulk by changing to a shorter crochet stitch at the crown-end of each row, but the stitch transition is usually evident at a glance.

But what short row construction does is take the best of all worlds. It’s still worked in rows with panel shaping but has only one seam (and a cinch) and uniform stitches throughout. It’s a great technique and it’s easy to learn!

The Camino Beanie uses this short row construction, but it’s not the first and only pattern to do so. If you’d like to try it out, you can check out this free hat pattern by BHooked. Personally, I prefer the Camino Beanie pattern because it uses half double crochet slip stitches, which are easier to work than the slip stitches of the BHooked pattern.

I’ve made 3 Camino hats so far in 3 sizes, with 1 more on the way. I plan on grading the pattern down for DK weight yarn (it normally uses worsted weight), so I can make more hats with the random DK skeins I’ve got sitting in my stash. I’ve already got a spreadsheet calculator started; it just needs more fine tuning!

Other Updates

Finally, some little updates from my post last week. I finished my Pumpkin Mesh Scarf, pictured below (unblocked). I’ve also made a little more progress on my Bonbon Blanket. I’m almost done with the third skein, and I’ve got one more left to add. After that, I’ll add a solid pink border!

That all said, my current crochet charity tally is:

• 1 baby blanket
• 1 adult shawl
• 1 child scarf
• 1 adult hat
• 1 child hat
• 1 baby hat

Two more months to go!