Birthdays and tam jackets
I’ve got a lovely set of presents (how horribly materialistic – but they are lovely, and some are crafty, and some are funny, and the cards are beautiful … and I’ve just noticed the time and realised that I don’t actually have time to photograph them all this morning, so the pressie haul will have to wait for later).
So, finally, the tam jacket tutorial:
OK – so if you knit in stocking (stockinette) stitch and increase in two out of three rows at the end of a row, you will get an edge at a 45 degree angle to the row of knitting. (Or so says Debbie New ) If you do this at both ends you will get a right-angled triangle.
Now, if instead of knitting backwards and forwards you knit in the round, and do a double mitred increase (backwards yo, K1, M1L) in four places evenly spread around in two out of three rounds, you will get a square like this:
Now do this in six places in two out of every three rounds and you get 6 right angles. Six right angles doesn’t really work, so it goes all wobbly round the edges:
But if you fold this in half, then you get a 3/4 square:
If you take two of these and add them together, you get a little jacket:
Cool huh? Debbie New describes it as a “quick knit” – which it probably would be with DK and 4mm needles, but if you happen to have some Phildar Phil Luxe already in, which says to use 2.5 mm needles, then it seems like a good idea…
Except that by the time you have too many stitches to fit on dpns, you realise that the only circs you have that are anywhere close are 2mm. So by the time you get to the edge of the first tam (tam because it’s constructed like a tam hat) you have approx 500 stitches. Now that’s OK (ish), but you need to make another, the same. And you need to graft the shoulder seams and down the back. That means grafting approx 200 stitches. Now I know at least one extremely competent knitter who balks at grafting 12 stitches across a sock – let’s just say that my proficiency at grafting has increased dramatically.
And then you need to make a button band. Except that this button band goes all round the remaining stitches – i.e. down one side of the front, along the bottom, up the other side of the front and across the top. Now, have you been counting: 2 tams, each with 500 stitches round the outside – that makes 1000 stitches. 200 of these have been grafted (although the good news is that they use up 400 stitches – which I’ve only just realised, so my whinging at KTog last night may have been a little excessive) – still that means that the button band comprises 600 stitches. BUT the big advantage is NO SEAMING!! YAY!!!
And it’s still not quite finished – just the ends to weave in (oh how I hate weaving in ends!) and the buttons to sew on – and then I’ll take more pics and be very happy. 
Update: I can see that there’s a sudden flurry of interest in this post from Swedish readers. Do please leave a comment – I’d love for you to say “Hi”.
three comments:
I’m in Norway, not Sweden, but I really like your jacket! And the turotial solved a problem, as my Debbie New book is staying with a friend of mine.Ingrid () - 26 August '06 - 12:40
Hi! I suppose it’s me who’s the source of all Swedish visits. Your post explains a lot about the tam jacket we’re trying to knit in our local SNB group in Stockholm. So I mailed your URL to the others. Happy knitting! (BTW: you are the first blogger I’ve come across (accept me) that uses The Knitter Geek Code. :))Marika () (link) - 26 August '06 - 18:13
Hi! That’s a lot of stitches… But no seaming can be worth many extra stitches! I like your blog, Marika sent me here from hers.I used to live in Cambridge (only for a short while though) but that was before my real knitting obsession started. I can’t remember any yarn shops though…
Liisa () (link) - 28 August '06 - 11:24
