This pattern is an offshoot of the more generic ṭāqīyah pattern I am currently working on. The pattern can be knit up as a prayer skullcap or a beanie. The pattern reminds me of Mamlouk architecture; it is adapted from a pattern found in the book Alterknit Stitch Dictionary by Andrea Rangel.

I am using cotton for this test; and I was ecstatic to find a local source of cotton at Stony Hill Fiber Arts – Cindy Walker’s Ravelry Store. The cotton is beautiful (these are natural colors) and really wonderful to work with. Supporting Western North Carolina businesses at this time is also something to think about I think.

I’m hoping to also test cotton/wool blends and also wool. So far the cotton is working up on needle sizes 2.75mm/3.25 mm (2 and 3 US), with wool on sizes 3.25/3.75 mm (3 and 5 US). But I see a lot of variation possible here.

The pattern is named “bahija” which means “joy” in Arabic. It is also the name of my mother, who was forced to give me up for adoption. Contrary to the adoption marketing lie that “she loved me so much she gave me away”, in fact she wished to keep me. My grandparents acted to keep the family intact, further putting the lie to Western projections of non-agency and foreign backwardness. Sadly, this is not how things ended up transpiring. I visited her crypt in 2016, and wrote the following:

❝I informed my mother I was back and I begged her forgiveness for my tardiness; I pleaded she overlook our paths that had not managed to overlap; I assured her that my American mother’s care need obviate any lingering worries about my upbringing in her absence; I beseeched her to realize, as my friend Omar assured me, that the answer to her lifetime of dow‘a (supplications) had, at long last, come to pass: I had returned.❞

My mother’s side of the family is mushaykh (religious Druze), and I dedicate this ṭāqīyah pattern to my extended family and villagers who helped me search and who also welcomed me back when I finally found my story while living in Lebanon. May it bring joy to those who knit it up as well as those who wear it. Free pattern available soon.

Note: I was using a anti-jog technique usually used for stripes, and done by going back and adding a yarnover before the last stitch in the color of the first stitch of the next round. Instead of cutting the yarn, I looped it. I posted a question in Rox’s group and got a great answer showing a tutorial from Patty Lyons for jogless Fair Isle knitting:

https://www.ravelry.com/discuss/rox-rocks/4340581/