Knit hats?

[string]

What do you guys think about knitted tams, any strong opions on color, if they should be fulled or not, etc. I'm just curious because I've knit my baby niece a tam and I'm working on a floppy one for my mom and thought of you gentleman and ladies

[Pleater]

There seems to be two forms of tam, one which is brightly coloured fairisle patterned and not fulled, or maybe just lightly felted, and the single colour ones which are made rather large and then shrunk down and shaped, and possibly dyed at the same time.

I associate the former type with schoolgirls and women of a certain age, and the latter I consider more manly - certainly more the sort worn with a uniform - having worn a bottle green one for five years I do have a certain antipathy to them, but they are certainly very useful to have in a pocket should the weather turn wet or cold, and to hold long hair out of the way when working with machinery or in a dirty environment.

Anne the Pleater

[Heming]

If I were to wear it, I'd have it felted to the point where the knit stitches wouldn't be recognisable and preferably in a dark, earthy or mossy colour. Or charcoal.

I expect many will feel differently!

[piperdbh]

I agree with Anne.
If you want a nice, soft hat, don't felt it.
If you want something akin to a Balmoral, felt it hard.

[fluter]

For myself, it'd be felted like a balmoral. Mmm, unless it were a nifty pattern. I suppose it's wearer's choice, in the end.

[string]

I'm just curious. I've not really done a lot of felting

[Pleater]

Felting can be fun - or a real disaster - but the general rule is that if you want a thicker felt you use larger needles so that there is more loose thread to mesh together.

I think that the most sucessful felted project I did was actually crochet work rather than knit - and it was a cashmere beret - which unfortunately the moths love to use as nests for their young, and I left it exposed on a shelf - all I found was the edging ribbon and cord and the stuff not altered into moths, the empty skins and cocoons.

I do have quite a bit of the yarn left, maybe I'll have another go if it hasn't all been eaten.

NOTE TO SELF: keep cashmere in the freezer.

A light felting can be very good - I had a natural wool jersey which was just slightly felted and it was excellent for the outdoors. It had closed up enough to be windproof, showerproof, but still light enough to be pleasant to wear.

Anne the Pleater

[Friday]

I have knit and fulled three Balmorals and like the look and feel of these hats. I my mind I associate tams more with the Irish then Scots, but, I am not a historian. I have a tam on my list of things to knit. I don't know if it is to be a solid color (large balmoral) or a multicolor tam.

I personally, and it is only my opinion, do not like the small balmorals I seem to be seeing more of lately. Too often I have seen balmorals so small that if set square on the head and pulled to one side it wouldn't touch the ear. For me this is to small, probably because of my fat head.

Hats should show personality, go with a TAM.

[Heming]

Generally for felting use loosely spun wool, and it must be 100% wool. Most knitting will shrink about 40%, so to find out how big you need to knit your hat you take the "raw" measurement and divide it by 6 and times by 10 to get the size you want to have before felting. It'll look ridiculously large.

Also I'd use chunkier needles than for "normal" knitting with the same wool, maybe one or two sizes bigger.

[LANCER1562]

The only knit tam that I wear at present, is a triple weave knit wool tam in burgundy that I wear when I'm in Ren garb. All of the men in my re-enactment guild wear one as sort of our calling card. They ere made for us by a woman who lives in Whittier, CA. I have worn mine in the rain and even in light snow and soaking wet it is still quite comfortable.