Irresponsible Tam

I am thrilled to have my Irresponsible Tam included in the special Accessories 2012 issue of Knitscene magazine! I'm honored to be included with such an amazing collection of patterns, especially for my first ever pattern to be published in a conventional print magazine.

This hat was inspired by those that were popular in the early part of the 20th century. I had a lot of fun browsing through antique knitting and crochet patterns online to find out how the original berets were made (just like today, there's top-down or bottom-up patterns, as well as those knit flat and those knit in the round).

The name of this hat comes from the female love interest in Meredith Nicholson’s 1905 book, “The House of a Thousand Candles”, in which the young heroine wears her jaunty red tam at an “irresponsible tilt”.

The color was inspired by another line from the same book: "There is something jaunty, a suggestion of spirit and independence in a tam-o'-shanter, particularly a red one."

Photos are courtesy of Knitscene magazine.