So, when I noticed that the Harmony Guide series had a new book in town, and it just so happened to concentrate on my new found love of colourwork stitches, I was clicking my way through the appropriate Amazon pages within a heartbeat.

I then waited, and waited.  I know today is only the 7th of January, and we are experiencing some exceptional weather conditions, but I ordered the book last year, and it was supposed to arrive by the next working day.  Finally though, the book arrived.

The Harmony Guide to Colourwork, attending a family reunion.

There is so much I love about this book.  It is clear, well photographed and uncluttered.  The designs are clearly charted.  The book begs to be flicked through, then orders you to make a cup of tea and then flicked through again.  The edition distributed in the U.K. has a ‘u’ in the title.  Great stuff.

It isn’t perfect, though.  Like the other Harmony guides I own it seems to suffer from a lack of organisation.  The Harmony guides start off in a logical manner – the easiest stitches of the particular type being categorised coming first.  A simple openwork pattern begins the guide to lace.  A progression from garter stitch, to stockinette, reverse stockinette and k1, p1 rib gets the Knit and Purl guide off to an obvious start, and so it is with the colourwork guide.  Single dots on a plain background, placed one stitch apart.  Single dots on a plain background placed two stitches apart, two coloured stitches on a plain… you get the idea.  This very quickly ascends a learning curve into more complex patterns – bands of motifs, various snowflake designs of Norweigan colourwork, intarsia designs, but, inexplicably, possibly the simplest colourwork technique of them all – evenly proportioned stripes, isn’t found until page 200.

individual designs are well laid out and easy to follow

There also doesn’t seem to be (or at least I can not discern) any logic to the groupings of stitch examples.  Examples of snowflake designs are scattered throughout the publication, instead of being grouped together, traditional Fair Isle motifs are inter-spaced by designs that used four or more colours per row (shudder).  At least the publishers sought to keep the letters of the alphabet together and in the traditional order.

Once you get used to the idea that you will have to look through the entire guide each time you are searching for something though, you start to regard this as a pleasurable pursuit rather than a chore standing between you and your latest project, and that’s what I am about to do.  I have a good friend waiting to help choose some colours and motifs for his new sweater…

I have always wanted a Fair Isle tank top. Really.

Marram

Here is my latest pattern, ‘Marram’.  Featuring spiralling slipped stitches and a secondary spiral of stepped colour changes in thin, graphical stripes. I have been wearing this hat, knit in a blend of warm alpaca, merino, and even a touch of silk, quite a lot over the last week or so, now that the temperature has dipped into a cold that bites just a bit harder, but here it is warming the head of my other half. I wanted to show how suited I thought it was to a man as well as to a woman, especially in the season of knitted gifts when sometimes it is a little harder to find small knitted items for male recipients that have interesting aesthetics as well as an engaging but quick project.

"look over there, it's the Goodyear blimp!"

After I managed to trick Craig in taking part in a spontaneous photoshoot I had to settle upon a name, as the pattern was written up and ready to go.

The name ‘Marram’ came from my last blog post where I asked if folks might have any suggestions over what I might call this hat.  I was actually quite surprised by the number of kind and thoughtful responses.  There were a few I have to admit that I had to google: ‘Sphagnopsida’ and ‘Sphagnum’, both meaning a type of peat moss from what I gathered, and very apt given the mossy appearance of the hat as had been noted, but they also kept making me think of bolognese.  A few suggestions based on the spiralling design: ‘Fibonacci’ (another I need to check the spelling of) and ‘Ammonite’.

Craig’s favourite was not a comment left in suggestion of a name, but rather a very kind response to the hat itself by Jane – ‘Great hat!’.  Craig actually suggested I call it ‘Great Hat!’, which, though cute and funny, I didn’t have the nerve to do.  For one it sets a dangerous precedent.  Clearly my next hat would have to be ‘better’ than the Great Hat, otherwise it would be the ‘Not-So-Great Hat’, or the ‘Well, It’s OK Hat’.  If the next hat was to be better, it would then have to be the ‘Even Greater Hat’, and the following one the ‘Best Hat Yet!’, and then where would my lack of modesty take me?  So I had a look at the other suggestions: ‘Sea Grass’, which  could imagine spiralling in the movement of the water, and finally ‘Marram’.  Similar to the Sea Grass suggestion, I could imagine the curving lines of long grass blades, and it seemed to fit perfect.

Marram Grass

Also, it is of course a palindrome, which scores extra points as I am a nerd. These few lines of poetry seal the deal:

The spiked marram’s springy knitting-needles
Purl and entangle what concrete cannot conquer
And the green holds back the brown.

From ‘The Rock-Face’ by Norman Nicholson

Thankyou to Linda for the suggestion, and to everyone else who took tome to comment and give me suggestions when I lost inspiration.

Download the PDF for the Marram Hat