Stranded!

The type of colorwork that I'm doing is called "stranded" or Fair Isle colorwork. This is a traditional northern European way of integrating multiple colors into a knitted object that has the added bonus of providing extra warmth.

While the front side of the knitted object looks smooth and shows off a pretty colorful design, the wrong side looks like this.

The wrong side of stranded colorwork

You've probably got a pretty good idea of why this style is sometimes called stranded. The horizontal stripes of yarn that you see here are called "floats" because it is like the yarn is floating along the back of the project. It isn't tied or twisted into anything, except for every few stitches, the color that isn't showing on the front gets looped around the yarn that is currently in use. This creates a double layer of yarn for extra warmth and allows you to carry the yarn you're not using all the way around the project.

I chose to use stranded colorwork because items knit in the round lend themselves naturally to this style. It is easy to continue floating the yarn around the glove as you continue knitting. Also, because of the way I designed the tiles, blue and white alternate frequently so having both colors of yarn at the ready is a plus.

Since this is a project about the Netherlands, we can't forget about utility either! The extra heat stranded colorwork provides is especially appealing.