On knitting a rare-breed tam

A tam is a beret-like hat shape based on the scottish military hat shape called Tam o'shanter. This is not a hat-shape that I necessarily have to wear, but I had scraps of wool and the process of knitting one intrigued me. I guess I've been inspired by knitting blogs and the gorgeous patterns posted on ravelry, a website widely used in the knitting community as a pattern and project and even yarn-management page.

But before talking about the item I actually want to talk about the wool with a small side-story. I spent a good part of my childhood in a quite large village in rural Germany - on the edge of the Swabian Jura. When I moved there, the village still had several active farms that had a wide spread of animals and crops, but by now most of the animals have gone and the crop-bearing land is managed by very few farms. Most of the active farms have shut down. The Swabian Jura is not the best crop-bearing land; this central mountain range consists of lime stone which means that the water drains quickly and fields are always covered in stones. So instead there is a long-standing tradition of forestry and wandering shepherds on the Swabian Jura. When I was a child it was a highlight of the year when the one or two occasions came along when, without any warning, the shepherds would herd their sheep directly past our house - nibbling at the edge of our lawn and pooing everywhere (imagine my childish delight!). Everything was quiet, suddenly there were sheep everywhere and then 20 minutes later just as suddenly as they had appeared they left, leaving just a sprinkling of poo behind to remind us that they had been there.

Since then I've had a soft spot for locally-rooted shepherds and wool. Hence the rare-breeds wool for this tam.

So back to the topic.

I had some scraps of wool off two specific breeds

• the Jezersko-Solčava, which I know as "Brillenschaf" (translates to spectacles-sheep)

Jezersko-Solčava, image from Wikipedia

• the "Schwarzes Bergschaf" (sorry, I could only find a German breed-description, there does not yet seem to be a Wikipedia article for this breed). Boring as German names go, this name translates to 'black mountain sheep'. 

Image taken from the breeders association, this is the original source.

Both are rustic, hardy sheep that are native to the high rocky grounds of the Alps. I sourced the wool from a website that is focussed on ensuring the ongoing survival of rare local breeds called Kollektion der Vielfalt and I highly recommend their wool. Though it is sometimes delivered smelling somewhat musty and the breeds they source can have quite hardy wool, I love what they are doing and their wool is amazing for outer garments - no pilling here! Also, it is the only place in the wide internet that I have found "Brillenschaf"-wool anywhere close to affordable. And I really have hunted...

The scraps I used specifically were natural dark-brown Schwarzes Bergschaf (200m/100g) and plant-dyed green Brillenschaf (sadly they don't have the exact colour any more, but it was similar to this - just green; 180m/100g). They were scraps from a jumper-project that I might show off at some point.

Before this blog post gets too much longer, briefly about the pattern and then about the item: Pattern was inspired by the two free patterns Greenvoe fair isle tam and Squirrels in the Forest tam. Though I used 3mm needles, the gauge was much too big and I couldn't get it smaller because the gauge was determined by the maximal curvature of the wool, so I did 7 repeats instead of 8. Also, I ran out of dark brown close to the middle, so the middle is all green. Also, once I finished it was still much too big, so I felted it quite strongly in the washing machine. Then I didn't like the cuff, so I folded it in and sewed it down like a beret. Finally, this is what I ended up with

 



That's ok. I'm happy enough with that. Once the weather cools down I might even wear it!

Formalities:

• Materials: approx. 100g of wool in total, types listed above
• Tools: 3mm round needle, washing machine and felt balls to felt it
• Time: I have no foggiest clue, I mainly knitted this while commuting on the underground