i found the stitch pattern for the steel pansies scarf and tam in a japanese stitch dictionary that my jet-setting husband brought back from one of his jaunts to japan. i loved the pattern because it is sort of feather and fan but with a stronger vertical line.

the original chart had a knit five together in the center, and the increase and decreases were not balanced so my swatch turned out to be a triangle. after some fiddling, i think i have come up with something similar to the original.

the ends of the model scarf were blocked to match (ordinarily they would curve to complement rather than match), and a twelve-inch dinner plate was used to coax the tam into shape. my new favorite matching set!

you will use approximately one half skein of the two colors of yarn you choose for the scarf and approximately three quarters of each skein for the set.

the scarf-only, printed version of this pattern is sometimes tucked in packages ordered from numma numma. here the pattern is expanded to include the matching tam. through the months of may and june, two dollars from the sale of each pattern will be donated to the japanese relief effort through samaritan’s purse.