Wednesday, July 29, 2009

A More Traditional Tam




I've now branched out from Mary Rowe's book and into new territory (though rather old territory, really). I designed this man's sized tam and used an eight point star for the wheel pattern, rather than Mary's seven section wheel. The pattern I drafted quite a few times in different variations while gazing at the coloured photo of tams in Sheila McGregor's Traditional Fair Isle book. I kept redoing it to suit the colours as they looked when I knitted them. The wool is my handspun dyed with madder (red), indigo (blue), and safflower (yellow). There are also three natural wool colours there. I liked the rather 1930s look to the colour scheme.
Because I am cutting grass every day for the cow with a scythe I feel a hay rake might be helpful so I'm hoping to be able to trade this tam for one. I do know the Oamaru maker of hay rakes would like a traditional tam.

2 comments:

Shepherd's Loft said...

the tams are wonderful! thanks for showing them.

blodeuedd said...

Thanks. I'm planning to make more because it's fun.