FO- Snapdragon Tam

I started this on the plane back from Zurich. It took about a week to knit- it wasn't easy to memorize this pattern and the cables were pretty complex. It's PAY ATTENTION knitting.

Once I was done, two thing occurred to me.

1. Gauge swatches should have been made in the cable pattern, lest you want to end up with a feedbag for your head.
2. Very few people can pull of The Wearing of the Tam.

It ended up being huge. I threw it in the wash machine twice (I only have access to a front-loader, so it took the guesswork right out of the felting process) and then threw it in the drier for 10 minutes before taking it out and blocking it over a dinner plate and letting it dry on the radiator. The stitches tightened right up and the cables popped. Once it was dry, it was deemed wearable. Just not by me.



I used a bit over 2 skeins of Rowan Yorkshire Tweed, which is a discontinued dk weight yarn. It's a 2-ply yarn that is a bit undertwisted, so it wouldn't stand up to a lot of wear and tear.

The Week in Knitting

Very little spinning has been done lately, but circumstances have been perfect for getting some knitting done. I generally have to be home to spin, and there has been a lack of being home since I've been home.

Anyway, here is what is on the needles:

The Snapdragon Tam by Ysolda. I've never made a tam before and I feel brave branching out from my usual beanie and cloche comfort zone.



I'm using a discontinued Rowan Yarn- Yorkshire tweed. It's a DK weight 100% wool yarn. I actually bought the yarn to do this pattern:



I'm really glad I knew to walk away from that after just a few intarsia rows. The fact that there would be over 1000 ends to weave in was a good sign that I should stop. Did I mention that I also tried to knit this in the round?



The cable pattern on the Snapdragon is a bit complex and requires some brain power, but it's fairly simple in design and easy to memorize.

Also on the needles this week is the Avast. After letting the cabled band sit for ages, I picked up stitches along side it and started a fairly endless field of stockinette stitch.



Since I can knit this with my eyes closed, I was able to finish the body up to the pits plus one sleeve in this past week...and I've only got another inch to go on sleeve #2. Then it's joining everything together for the yoke. Maybe I can get the knitting done on this by the weekend.

It's a men's large (44 inches). I'm using my standard go-to worsted weight yarn, Valley Yarns Northhampton. This stuff is great for everyday projects. It's fairly soft, it looks great after wear and it's inexpensive.





I'm trying to make time for a big Etsy shop upload today- lots of handpainted roving this time around. I've had this stuff dyed up for a month now and just haven't been home during daylight to photograph it until yesterday.

Has Anyone Had This Happen?

Please tell me yes.

I'm working on the Snapdragon Tam. It's a bit complex so it requires some concentration to follow the pattern, but it's well written and not terribly difficult. I started it on the plane ride home on Sunday and I've been able to get a few rows in on the bus every morning this week.

I picked it up yesterday morning and I could not, for the life of me, figure out what was going wrong. I was at the start of a new row, but the pattern had ceased to make sense and fit in with the existing pattern. I searched for my mistakes, went back to see if I accidentally skipped a row or lost my mind on the previously row and interpreted it wrong. Crossed my cables the wrong way? Nope, they look ok.

I spent way too much time on this. I checked Ravelry and Ysolda's website for corrections or anyone having similar problems, but got nothing but raves about the pattern editors. Finally, as I was about to frog it back a few rows to start out where I thought I had a grip on things, I noticed something. I had two stitch markers designating the beginning of the round. The first one was correct, and the second one must have been lying around loose in my project bag and slipped onto the needles in the exact spot where I had stopped. So I wasn't at the beginning of the round after all, HA! I simultaneously felt relief that I didn't have to tink back and I wasn't crazy, but extremely dumb that I didn't just hold the work back a few inches and see the bigger picture and save my self an hour of angst.

Sneaky stitch marker.