Knitting with luxurious angora

I ran across this knitting pattern for tams, written by Angela Sixian Wu, and I thought it would be a wonderful way to showcase my Kool-Aid-dyed angora yarn--and a good gift for my daughter. I spun up some white angora to use as the main color, and, with the variegated pink yarn as the contrast, I knit this:

The hat is worked on Size 7 needles (Size 5's for the ribbing) to get the gauge of 5 stitches to the inch. I used three skeins of white yarn, with a few grams left over, and two full skeins of pink. Even though the yarn is not "perfect"--it has some thick spots, some thin spots, and no shortage of slubby places--the work came out pretty even. The pattern would be more pronounced if I had dyed the yarn darker; I guess that's an improvement for next time. The two-ply yarn creates a lightweight fabric, but, since angora has superb insulating properties, the hat is toasty warm. The yarn itself is pretty tightly spun; during handling, though, some of the fiber ends are released, giving the finished garment the expected fluffy angora look.

The best part of making this hat was the joy of handling the fabric. Wow. This is a soft hat, and an absolute delight to touch. And Heather looks pretty good wearing it, too.