Fat Hat
If you’re familiar with the rangoli drawing process, it’s really fast. Bits of rice powder flow from between your fingers as you swiftly draw straight lines between two dots here and curlicues around the dots there.
Yarn, I’m afraid, is a much stickier proposition, as each stitch laboriously twists its way right and left.
Flourish and speed are not words that at least I associate with cables. Nimble fingers, however, are a requirement in both media, and the end result in yarn, I’m desperately hoping, is going to be just as worth it:
My rangoli tam/beret (what’s the difference, btw? just English and French?) which is advancing painfully slowly, but which might be completed soon. Before I forget, need to swear jot down some thoughts. I have frogged this project seven times, six times due to incompetent arithmetic and the seventh because of an error seven rows down that I couldn’t fix by rolling down an individual stitch. It’s not the pattern, it’s me. But I think I have the formula now. I’m going to complete this particular iteration, but to keep in mind for a final, more finished pattern and product:
1) No matter how beautiful and soft the alpaca yarn, cables and rib are nicer in springy, stretchy wool
2) For a pattern that requires a 1/3 increase in stitches after ribbing, it’s still a good idea to knit the ribbing with a smaller sized needle
3) Bavarian stitches will probably work a lot better with these single, free-form cable twists.
4) When a bobble is required exactly in the centre of two lines, it helps if the number of stitches between them is odd.
5) Likewise, if two lines are to cross neatly and symmetrically, it helps if the number of stitches between them is even.
6) Mixing up this odd and even combination invariably leads you to draw on particular words from your vocabulary again and again.
7) Swatching is good, even for a small project like a hat.
Deeni, if you’re reading this, I saw pictures of the Sunflower Tam, and I actually have an almost identical rangoli pattern like it that my mum named "Padmakamal" (Lotus). I might look at the pattern (don’t have the Norah Gaughan book) if I decide to adapt another pattern after this one. Thanks for telling me about it!
Seven?! That, I think, beats even me at my most frog-happy.
But it’s a lovely color, and I’m sure the alpaca’s gorgeously soft, even if it’s not so springy, and it’ll be grand when it’s done.
I just started a sock. In principle a jaywalker, though I’m doing it toe up, and smaller, I think. We’ll see.
You have far more patience than me! I’d have probably thrown the whole thing out the window by now
It will be beautiful though. So am I understanding right, that the alpaca isn’t that great for cabling?
Ai yi yi! 7 times frogged? You’re a braver woman than I. I’m sure the end result will be worth it though!
I never thought about how rangoli patterns are inspired by nature and things like phyllotaxis. Did you ever have rangolis made with rice paste as opposed to powder? I remember that my mom made daily kolams with the powder and the special ones were made with paste and obviously lasted a bit longer.
Tam and beret- my understanding is that berets are overall a bit slouchier. Tams are Scottish, and the shape is a bit more defined, as in the top of the hat is a perfect circle and there’s usually a purl turning row between the ribbing and the tam’s ‘disk’. This is my understanding anyway, I could be all wet.
Math = ow.