Howick Tam: Tips for a Marie Wallin Colorwork Project

Like so many of you, I have admired Marie Wallin's colorwork designs for a long time. I've been mesmerized by the way she puts colors together and creates stunningly colorful yet cohesive knit designs. But I've also been intimidated to purchase and start a Marie Wallin project- the learning curve! The time commitment!

BUT THEN! Marie launched a new yarn line – her British Breeds Aran. This is the US worsted weight equivalent of her fingering weight, with a simplified color palette and twice as many plies for a beautifully round, woolly yarn. Now the time commitment was less daunting, and I was ready to dive in!

I decided to start with the Howick Tam from her new Aran book. A small project that would make a good sample for The Woolly Thistle's shop front and still allow for lots of exploration.

So let's dive in and explore this project together! I want to take you through the details of the knitting, show you the finished hat, and I also give you an idea of how much yarn will be left and how you can use it for more hats in alternate colorways!

Read on for tips to get the most out of your Howick Tam kit. I also talk through these ideas and show the finished hat on Shopcast Episode 242!

1. What's in the Howick Tam Kit?

The Howick Tam kit from TWT comes with a pattern download (sent via email), TWT tote and stitch marker, and 9 skeins of British Breeds Aran in the colors Raw, Silver Birch, Pale Oak, Quince, Wood, Russet, Chestnut, Mallard, and Dark Apple. At 50 grams each, that's a total of 450 grams of yarn to play with!

A TIP: I recommend getting to know your colors - take a moment to look at each ball, admire the heathered colors, and get familiar with each color's name.

2. What's the pattern like? How does the hat knit up?

The pattern can print out onto two pages. You can enlarge the chart using a printer/scanner or upload into a pattern reader like Knit Companion, but I found the normal print-out worked just fine. The chart uses symbols to represent each color. This looks intimidating at first but when taken line-by-line, it becomes intuitive!

A TIP to more quickly read the chart: Since each row uses only two colors, I wrote down the color names in the margin next to the row where new colors start. That way I didn't have to keep referring back to the symbol/color chart.

The hat is knitted in the round from the brim to the crown. There are frequent color changes (part of the fun!) so quite a few ends to weave in at the end. I saved the weaving until the end so I could tidy up the stitches and smooth out the color changes.

The gauge is 24 sts for 4 inches, and I found that I needed to go down to a size US 6 (recommended is 7) needle to get gauge. This is a dense gauge for a worsted weight yarn, resulting in a cozy warm hat.

The techniques needed for this project include chart reading, long-tail cast-on, knit/purl ribbing, stranded knitting with two colors at a time, and K2tog or sl1-K1-psso types of decreases. An adventurous beginner colorwork knitter has all they need to knit this hat, as long as you have some patience to manage lots of yarn tails! 

3. How much yarn does the hat take?

With 9 required colors, you obviously get a lot more yarn than is needed for one hat. That's one of the awesome things about this kit, you don't just get one hat out of it!

I weighed the balls ahead of time (using our coffee scale which does tenths of a gram), then again after I knitted the hat. That way I could measure how many grams of each color was used.

The entire hat used 75.2 grams of yarn, weighing 74.3 grams once I trimmed the ends. Here's a list of how much of each color I used, based on knitting the hat exactly to pattern with the recommended gauge:

A. Raw (MC): 20.6 grams

B. Russet: 4.9g

C. Dark Apple: 4.5g

D. Quince: 4.8g

E. Silver Birch: 13g

F. Mallard: 8.4g

G. Pale Oak: 9.7g

H. Chestnut: 7.4g

I. Wood: 1.9g

4. I love my first Howick Tam FO. So how many more hats could I make?

You would have enough yarn left after the first hat to knit a second identical hat, with other amounts left after that!

Or, with some creative color arranging, you could get as many as 5 hats from the kit! I have some tips for you to get the most out of these 9 balls.

5. Can you suggest some alternate colorways?

A TIP: Once you've made the hat in the original colorway, you can rearrange the colors to make several more! Here I've worked out the colors for two alternate colorways, using either Russet or Dark Apple as the main color. This kit provides plenty of yarn for all three hats, with leftovers still!

The original hat relies on light colors for the background and dark colors for the motifs. For these two versions, I swapped for a dark background and light motifs.

I'm on my way to finishing a second hat sample, using Russet as the main color. Here is the color order you should assign for a Russet version:

A. Russet

B. Raw

C. Chestnut

D. Wood

E. Mallard

F. Quince

G. Dark Apple

H. Silver Birch

I. Pale Oak

I've also knitted a swatch of a version with Dark Apple as the main color so you can see how it will look. 

Here is the color order you should assign for a Dark Apple version:

A. Dark Apple

B. Quince

C. Russet

D. Mallard

E. Chestnut

F. Silver Birch

G. Wood

H. Pale Oak

I. Raw

6. How else can I rearrange the leftover yarns for more hats?

Switching colors in a Marie Wallin design can be tricky. The design can get lost if there's not enough contrast between the main color and background color.

A TIP: Consider what colors will be next to each other within the design. Hold those balls together to see if there appears to be enough contrast of tone and/or hue to make the design stand out. Swatch if you're not sure!

In the Howick Tam design, some colors are treated as light and some as dark. Once you start seeing these patterns, you can mix and match to see what combinations you like.

Light colors: Raw, Silver Birch, Pale Oak, Quince

Dark colors: Wood, Chestnut, Russet, Dark Apple, Mallard

In the chart, colors A, D, E, and G correspond to light colors. Colors B, C, F, H, and I correspond to dark colors. 

For my the versions which swap the dark and light colors, I couldn't directly swap the 4 light colors with the 5 dark colors, so I relied on color C to have flexibility as more of a mid-tone. This color doesn't have as much importance for the chart motif, so I could get away with less contrast.

A TIP: You can also consider simplifying the design to just a few colors.

For example, use just one color for parts A/D/E of the chart. Other good colors to combine are B/C, and F/H/I.

A TIP: Keep in mind how much yarn you will need for these additional color combos.

Since I gave you the amount of grams required for each color A-I, you can figure out ahead of time if you will have enough of any particular color for your hat! If you're thinking about using one color in place of several original colors, just add up the yarn requirements for those colors to see if you'll have enough.

A FINAL TIP: Have fun experimenting! Since a hat is such a small project, there's not much at stake when you take a risk with new color combinations.

7. I've conquered the Howick Tam. What should I try next?

If you love doing colorwork in worsted weight, I suggest trying another of Marie's Aran designs. The Embleton Scarf is full of fun motifs and would be a great way to practice knitting colorwork flat. The Seahouses Sweater would up your colorwork game into a garment-sized FO, and is knitted in the round.

If you're ready to try Marie's 4ply fingering weight yarn, try out her Tarn Tam or Wensley Mitts for further accessory exploration. 

Share your making in our Facebook and Ravelry Groups as well, and let us see where your creativity takes you!

Shop Howick Tam and all Marie Wallin at The Woolly Thistle!