And even MORE presenting...

My 12-in-12 challenge continues to pay dividends! (The past week has been pretty awesome for that, eh?)

I am once again thrilled to be able to talk about a design that I've been sitting on for a while. This time, it's the Flutterby Tam!

It's just come out in the latest issue (#14) of Petite Purls (which has some really freakin' awesome patterns in it, I must say; I am getting seriously tempted to stray from my deadline knitting).

It was conceived of just as I describe in the issue - by musing over the leftovers from two pairs of socks, and having the idea of "butterflies" just pop into my head. After a bunch of charting and swatching and pattern writing, I did an initial stab at the garment, using one of the original sock yarns I'd had in mind (the pink one):

But I wasn't completely happy with the fit.

I swear, I've lost count of the number of times I re-knit this thing, first to get the sizing I was happy with, and then to test different sizes, such as this one:

I also started one in the largest size using the original two yarns I'd had in mind, but I ran out of pink yarn and finished it up with some pink leftovers of another colourway; but you can totally tell. I finally found more of the original pink yarn online and ordered it. One day I will rip back the last bit of that tam and finish the darn thing off. (And hopefully it will still fit DD1 when I finally do.)

At last, though, after all this ripping and re-knitting, I had something that I was happy with. Very happy with.

The magazine liked it as well, and the rest, as they say, was history!

(Updates on my knitting projects resuming soon, I swear. :)