I shouldn’t have been surprised that you wanted to see the inside of the ladybug hat, since I always want to see inside others’ colorwork. But it never even crossed my mind. Here’s the inside of the hat:

Those are some really long floats, right there. And some fairly tight knitting, too. It’s not pulling or anything, but when I do the sweater I definitely need to loosen up a bit.
Now, the color piece is folded up to make the brim of the hat–at some point you turn your work and the WS of the work becomes the RS. So none of these floats will be up against any skin, and in fact if blocking doesn’t fully take care of the curl I might even tack it into place. Thus, the 9-stitch floats in parts of the work are totally okay for the hat. I’m not sure they will be in a sweater, though–what’s the prevailing wisdom? The gauge is 8 stitches to one inch. An inch of float doesn’t seem that long to me, but this is only my second colorwork project. Thoughts?
I really need to just cast on for some socks when I finish the hat tonight, because I’m a little skittish about this sweater. There’s the float issue, and when I read through the pattern today I noticed that the armholes are machine-stitched and then steeked. (!!!)
I have never steeked before. It’s my one irrational knitting fear. So, this project will be good for me, and I really enjoy fair isle, but I might need a little confidence-building first. And I haven’t knit Jaywalkers yet, and there’s that beautiful CTH sock yarn that Marlena gifted me this holiday season.
…What? Avoiding? Of course not. I’m a Knitter, truly.
(Well, maybe I’m avoiding just a teeeeensy bit.)