I’ve done stripes, but never stranded or intarsia.
I’m going to make this hat: http://verily-vintage.blogspot.com/2009/04/choo-choo-beanie.html
After watching the videos, I’m not sure if I can do this hat stranded.
It’s knit in the round, so I can’t use intarsia, correct?
And from the stranded video I watched, it mentioned that I can’t carry one color along for more than 5 stitches.
You can see that in some rows of this pattern, there are more than 5 stitches of the CC.
So is it best if I just cut the yarn and use the new color once I get to the train pattern since I can’t really carry the yarn along with me?
Or am I not understanding and can I actually carry the yarn along somehow?
Thanks in advance for the help!
You might be able to carry the other color more than 5 sts if you ‘catch’ the strand in one of the sts on the WS. I don’t do color knitting, but it seems like that would work. The pattern’s written in the round, so she evidently did it. There’s a suggestion: “[FONT=trebuchet ms]When working the pattern section be very careful not to pull the yarn too tightly, or once completed the hat will look distorted and won’t fit!”[/FONT]
I was wondering if that was possible!
Just kind of catch the yarn behind the other color as I go along.
I’ll give that a shot. It’s better than having all those ends to weave at the end! 
Thanks!
Here is a link to some good information about color knitting involving dealing with floats. LINK
You can leave longer floats than 5 stitches. Some knitters leave really long ones and if they are loose enough to not affect fit and gauge it is okay, but…the long floats may be a problem with catching on them. This would not be such a big problem with a hat. There are links at the link I gave about ways to catch in floats. That works but if your colors are very contrasting the carried color may show in the back.
With this pattern you would only have to consider catching in floats in a few places, most of the color changes are often enough to not worry about them at all. If you decide to catch in floats some way and there are two rounds in a row where it needs to be done, don’t line the places where you catch in up with each other, stagger them.
That was a HUGE help! Thank you so much!
I totally agree with MarigoldinMA’s post and Nanette’s blog is great for anyone starting out on stranded knitting. I would add, though, that it makes a difference what kind of yarn your using. On a hat, especially one knit in wool, I don’t think I would bother to wrap floats unless they were more than an inch long, becuase probably they would stick to the inside of the hat anyway.
If you’re knititng in cotton, on the other hand, the floats aren’t going to stick together so it might be a good idea to wrap the floats.
What you have to remember is if you wrap too many floats you will make your fabric less streatchy, which is kind of bad in a hat. I think floats are more of an issue on gloves, for instance, where someone’s finger might catch them.
