This hat is knitted from the bottom up, starting with the ear flaps. For the body of the hat, I start out knitting in the round then switch to intarsia in the round for the Tractor Chart (it could be stranded if the intarsia method is too confusing) and I finish off the hat by knitting in the round. Also, the braid attached to the ear flaps is an 8-stranded square braid.