My friend, Joyce, asked me for a tam pattern – I almost typed “recipe!”  But, actually, my preferred method of knitting tams is more a recipe than a pattern.  Ann Budd’s The Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns gives me all the numbers I need to customize a tam to the gauge and size I want.  So, I can choose a yarn, swatch it up to the density I desire (more on that in a moment!), figure the gauge and just plug in the numbers of stitches, rows, decreases, etc. from Ann Budd’s nifty charts! 

So, for the gorgeous purply-mauvey variegated fingering-weight yarn I bought at the Fair (Pashmara in merino/cashmere/silk – mmmmm), I simply hunted out a couple of fun stitch patterns (“Domed Check” which is a field of little rounded cable triangles and a lace motif called “Orchid Pattern”) and swatched it up so that it had some body (not floppy, but was not stiff either).  7 sts/inch.  Then, I double-checked my head measurement (by myself – which I do not recommend, but I was home alone and determined to get started!) and started writing up notes based on the charts for “medium adult” in that gauge. 

I also measured a tam I like that is knit of a yarn of similar weight and made a few adjustments to the number of rows I would do before decreasing.  And then I charted up the lace pattern – which was the most confounded beast of a conundrum!! as I wanted to use a double-decrease (which would match the double-decrease in the lace motif)  instead of two individual decreases and could not, for the life of me, get it onto graph paper!  A tam is worked in segments of a circle (6, in this case) with a decrease at the beginning and end of each segment on every-other-row.  It makes a symmetrical triangle.  Piece of cake (it even looks like a piece of cake!). 

But try putting the decreases together at the beginning of the segment (with no decreases at the end) and making a sensible graph and – augh!  It all goes wonky and the simple possible looks impossible and a grown woman will resort to waving sheets of graph paper in her husband’s face at midnight and demand that he do any better!  I finally decided I would just work from the cake-y version (which shows a decrease at each side) and just sort of wing it with the double-decreases.

But none of this has anything to do with Ann Budd’s directions – which are fabulously clear and reliable.  And she even gives you the double-decrease option (so I know it’s possible!).  It was me having to fuss in a lace chart that added the challenge. 

A word on yarn choice and density (which I said I would come back to).  I think the way a tam fits and sits on the head is determined mostly by yarn choice and density of the knitting.  Thin yarn worked loosely will yield a drapey tam that will sort of slink down one side of your head rakishly.  While one worked in a thicker yarn done more densely will sit atop your head pertly like a dollop of whipped cream.  Since a tam is basically a tube finished with quick decreasing that pulls it flat, you can make it larger in circumference by knitting more rows before beginning the decreases.  If you lessen the number of rows (tho I would not lessen them much), it will draw in – more like a beret.  I can never  really gauge where the crease will be until I get into the decreasing – so I would recommend a life-line in case you decide to pull it back and change the number of rows. 

The cool thing about the “recipe” technique is that you work with whatever yarn you choose at whatever density.  And you can add in texture or lace or cables or colorwork.  A great little design project.

That said, if you prefer to work a from a complete pattern, I recommend the following books:

Hats On! by Charlene Schurch (good basic hats in a variety of styles)

The Knit Hat Book by Nicky Epstein (fun, distinctive hats in a variety of styles)

Knitted Tams by Mary Rowe (a fabulous workbook for Fair Isle tams)

Now that I have got my own Autumn Tam written out and (sort of) charted up, I am ready to cast on!  I will let you all know how it goes.