Dawn Brocco's Life and Design Blog

Day started out rainy and cool, now it's hot and humid. The previous conditions were preferable.

With hubby home, I'm losing track of what day it is. And it's only gonna get worse as the 3+ months drag on.

Sending out a major thanks with kisses and hugs to Tony's Mom and Rox, who got up at 4 am!, so they could drive from South Jersey to take hubby to the hospital and back, and to the drugstore to get his meds.

They also brought a week's worth of food, lest he couldn't drive too soon with the gimpy arm to shop. And they bestowed on him the wherewithal to hire a guy or 2 to mow and wack these acres for a few weeks, so he doesn't have to.

They are both pure gems, always looking out for us, always helping us out. (Though I wish we weren't always in such need.)

I began thinking of tams, but this has morphed into mittens.

I knit a sample tam, following Ann Budd's numbers, in the Spring 2002 IK. I made a small, even tho my head circ is 21.5, not 21.

The brim, at 20% less than actual head circ, was way too loose, though. I'm figuring I need 25% less, which throws off the number that results from adding 50% for the tam body.

So, naturally, I drove myself nuts playing with all manner of percentages, both for brim and tam body.

My desire, though, was to retain that EASY k2, m1 for the 50% increase.

Now, EZ, in her Spun Out #8 - 5 Hats, says the tam body can be 50% extra or as much as doubled, depending on the planned width of the body. I suppose she meant to fit whatever color pattern one was using.

But once you veer from 50% or 100% off into any other %, one cannot increase evenly all the time. Increases are supposed to occur on one round. Is it blasphemy, then to increase over 2 rnds, in order to incorporate those leftover sts not accomplished by k2, m1?? Because I really hate having knitters work oddball increases.

I have a folder bursting at the seams with EZ's and Meg's Spun Outs and Woolgatherings, none of the designs of which I have ever made, nay, except for Gaffer's Gansey which I made for my father, oh, over 20 years ago.

Maybe when I get old. Tho some would say I am there now! OK, old and retired. Now THAT may never manage to take place.

Anyway, on the inside back cover of this folder are directions for a tam using π. And a scrap of paper where I tried to do just that - ha! But I did an example on that cover and it did work out, tho WHY I needed to know the circ of a theoretical tam is beyond me.

Basically, it says:
Desired diameter x π x gauge = # of sts to inc to after ribbing or hem.

Then C (circ) = (π r) squared.

I don't know what I was thinking. I doubt I'll ever need to know a tam's circ before casting on! And I couldn't tell you where I got that formula from - a book, an article?, your guess is as good as mine!

So, with brain rattled a bit, I turned to mittens. Pulled out a bunch of my colorwork graphs and find that, except for one, they all can only make one size mitten - woman's medium-ish size. Which isn't terrible, as other sizes could be attainable through yarn size change or ndl size change.

I want to dive right into knitting, but this seems to need to be fiddle around and run the numbers time, until things gel more.

Blanket's done, boys' colorway swatch done. Am just waiting on good lighting for the photos. I may wait til my new camera comes, roundabout Tuesday. Finally, to have many more of those little mega pixels at my service!

Labels: EZ, tams, Winter Spruce mittens