Sunset Tam - Helen (BlueDragon) of the online Yahoo knitting group "Mara" has challenged us knit a tam using sunset colors. Maine rarely has the gorgeous sunsets we see in photos of out west in the USA. My inspiration for the tam colors came from the library book cover of "Obsession" by Jonathan Kellerman. Blues, golds, oranges and a tiny hint of purple were in that cover sunset.




I'm using very little yardage of a lot of Jamieson & Smith 2 ply jumper weight yarns. This is a learning process for me as I'd not made a tam with the double decreases in the crown. The pattern I'm using is from Alice Starmore's "Book of Fair Isle Knitting". The photo of the tam and the pattern don't match, with the written instructions having more areas of plain knit than the photo. Doesn't matter as I always change patterns as I go along anyway. Fun to knit and light weight during these days of higher than usual heat in Maine. If my relatives lived anywhere but in the deep south, they'd all be getting tams for Christmas as this is a fun knit.

The Fair Isle knitting doesn't seem as smooth to me as usual but I don't usually use a 20" circular and carry colors. I think it will block out okay. Also need to find out how to do a jogless color join as the dark to light joins show rather abruptly. The photos are of the tam with the lid of a basket stuffed inside to spread it out.

I'm using all Jamieson & Smith yarn with one exception noted:
Dark blue - 135
Medium blue - FC49
Light blue - 14
Purple - Jamieson 133 Mauve Mix
Dark pink - Salmon 129
Medium pink - 9144
Light pink - 95
Pale pink - 101
Dark yellow - 90
Medium yellow - 207
Pale yellow - 96