I was walzing through a yarn shop a few months ago, and I called my mom to ask if there was anything I hadn’t knit for her yet. She reminded me of the tams we used to wear all the time (I say ‘we’ but I really mean ‘they were hers and I destroyed them’) and how she wished she had one again. It had been a looooong time since she’d seen one in a store. So, I said, “I’ll see what I can do.” I picked up some yarn and got to thinking.

My mom’s favorite garden flowers are impatiens. So, I figured an impatien-like design would be nice. Leaves make a pretty good crown – yeah, that’ll work. And a few days later, I brought the result into the office:

 Immediately, I was descended upon by Chroma-bearing coworkers saying “THIS MUST BE A PATTERN!” Fair enough – the gauge was right, the colorwork was just right, and it’s a great little project to test out a single ball of Chroma! And the result is the new Mom’s Tam pattern!

We had it knit up in two colorways – one using Chroma in Bittersweet Heather and Galapagos, and the other using Chroma in Midwinter with Wool of the Andes in Hyacinth as the solid color for a less expensive option.

Either way, this is a perfect little pattern to show off the awesome colors of Chroma! It’ll work with any color – so if you bought just one ball and thought to yourself, “What on earth am I going to make with this?” all you need is a solid color worsted weight yarn for the contrast and you can have a really cute, quick hat. And if you make one, thank my mom for the inspiration. 🙂