05.04.2025

I planned my colours and ordered the yarn - let´s gooo!

08.04.2025

The yarn arrived and looks soooo yummy!

12.04.2025

Knitted 12 rounds of ribbing, then two rounds with slip one wyib and purl one, because I want a folded brim.

I knitted 10 rounds after the 2 “folding” rounds.
Then I increased like the pattern said, to 162.

In the meantime I decided to make a tam out of it, because I never like beanies, they make my head look oddly out of proportion with my body. So I looked at Outi Kater’s November Tam, and estimated that I need 216 sts for a tam (the 18 st pattern repeat fits into 216 12 times), so I had to increase 54 st in a second increase round, which meant increasing every 3 sts.

26.04.2025

Finally washed and blocked (dressed) the tam over the lid of a baking pan, which was exactly the right size. I stuffed the tam underneath with a rolled towel, so that it gets a nice curvy appearance, the handle of the lid otherwise would have interfered with the blocking.

Can’t wait for it to dry! But I’ll leave it at least three days blocking, I will have to be patient.

27.04.2025

The tam was dry and I took it off the lid - and

OOPSIE!!!

It became too large!
(Not the brim thankfully, but I shouldn’t have used the lid of a pan, this was much too wide.)

Thinking about what to do, maybe slightly felting it… Will have to look up how to do.

28.04.2025

Now I’m back waiting for the tam to dry. I washed it with thoroughly warm water, and even kneaded it for a few minutes (not the brim though). I didn’t want to felt it all the way through, because then it would have lost all its drape. I also steamed it with our small Kärcher my husband once bought it for cleaning the grill, because I have seen a hatmaker on YouTube recommending that for shrinking hats just a little.

We’ll see.

This time I didn’t block it with a lid or a plate, but used the smallish cloth football from IKEA which belongs to my son.
I think this blocking might be fine, but who can say as long as the piece is still moist?

30.04.2025

It shrunk, and thankfully to almost exactly the amount I wanted it to! It’s dry now and it looks nice on my head, I even like the feel of the fabric - sturdier but still a bit drape.

It could be a tiny bit smaller still, I am thinking about throwing it into the water again and felt it some more.