October 2019 Hat for the WNHyearofhatsKAL

Of all the colorwork knitting methods (intarsia, mosaic, or duplicate stitch to name a few), I’ve been most hesitant to knit the stranded colorwork method. After knitting a headband/earwarmer (posted here) to learn this method of colorwork knitting, the idea of knitting a hat or a sweater with this method didn’t appeal to me much. This is because stranded colorwork requires holding two or more strands of yarn per row or round, working mostly with fingering or sport weight yarn, spending some time keeping the different strands of yarn untangled, and managing the floats in the back.

So this month I decided to get past this reluctance and knit a hat using the stranded colorwork method. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the experience of knitting this hat. Not having long floats and finding my own way of comfortably holding the strands of yarn helped in this process. I may now try knitting a more complex stranded colorwork hat this winter.

Keep warm and happy knitting