Winter Tam - Under Construction

I don't know how others do it, but I tend to be an organic designer, meaning I get an idea and then I have to buy the yarn and sort of design as I go.  When I did the Summer Dragonfly Tam  I originally thought of doing a tam for each season and bought the wool for the summer and the winter tams at the same time.  Now I know that designers can pitch a design idea to a magazine or company and get what is called "yarn support" meaning, I tell you what I am going to do and you send me the yarn for free to do it with.  Well.....that just gives me the jitters.  I bought 10 colors from KnitPicks for the Winter Tam and after staring at the yarn and the yarn staring at me for longer than I want to admit, I settled on 7 colors to use.  But then I just had to use 8. 

What if I had been given 10 colors and only used 8?  I don't think I could have stood the guilt of not using all 10.  I'm really trying to reduce the number of colors I use and I love the freedom of being able to include or reject colors that just don't seem to be working in the moment.   The Winter Tam, currently in eight colors, is an effort to prove to myself that I can design twice in a row.  That the success of the first piece isn't a fluke - that I'm not a one trick pony. Okay, there is no reason for that photo except that he actually is my pony.  His big trick is that he will follow you anywhere for a peppermint. 

So....I start the process of the Winter Tam design.  I have several charts started that will change and morph as I work through the knit process and we shall see how it all turns out - I have found that these things tend to have a life of their own.

And in the Beginning there was yarn:

I will keep you posted.  I'm off to my dad's for the weekend and the corrugated rib is decided, what comes next is still a mystery.