Tam Done, Blog Changes
There is a major upgrade planned for Blog-City tomorrow, March 7. I think I've made all the modifications required so the blog ought to be OK after the site comes back up. But it will be down much of the morning, anyhow.
I finished the tam and can't say I'm very impressed. It knit up well enough though it came out looking too small. But it blocked beautifully on a 10 inch plate as it was supposed to.
And it perches on my head
But there is no way it will stay on my head. Just normal movement, much less the gusty wind we are having, will topple it off. I suppose I could use bobby pins to hold it on (I don't think I own a bobby pin). But surely the generations who wore tams when they were popular must have had some other hat fixing solution. Perhaps I don't have a tam-shaped head. If I were to knit this again, I'd make a much deeper ribbing. The Knit Picks yarn is ok, but I'd like to see if Shetland had more body. And I'd like to figure out how to knit a French beret - the kind that is knit as big as a bicycle tire and felted down to size.
Maybe knitting the ribbing on smaller needles would help? From the picture
the ribbing looks very loose.
Maybe, but the ribbing was done on size 0 (2mm)and the body on size 3. I'm
more inclined to up the yarn size rather than decrease the needle size.
It's pretty, but I see your point about its usefulness as a hat! A wall
decoration, then?
I got the crocus yarn pack and book from knit picks but can't figure out
the pattern from the book - any advice? yours looks beautiful! I have never
tried fair isle before so I imagine I should practice first...
Rebecca, I found the tam pattern difficult to follow, and I'm an
experienced Fair Isle knitter. At one point Knit Picks had free PDFs to
download of the color sequences for the 3 tam kits - though I don't see
them on their web site now. I'd suggest contacting them and getting them to
send you a copy. Then I followed the color sequences and colored in the
appropriate charts since that is easier for me to follow than symbols.
However, the tam book's author starts each row in the middle of the
triangle and the decreases on the right edge every other row (I think) plus
there is an extra column of stitches on the right that I never did figure
out. The tam came out OK, but is a fairly useless piece of knitting as far
as I'm concerned. (I'm wearing it after I wash my hair and my head is
cold, while typing at the PC.) So, if I decide to knit one again I'll see
what EZ or some other knitting guru has to say on the subject and try to
make something more substantial and apt to stay on my head.