Hexagon Love

I mentioned before that I had started a new Granny Stripe blanket with leftover yarn. Well, that project is coming on a treat, but in the process of writing about it I had looked up the link for my Cuddly Hexagon Blanket.

I started the hexie blanket back in April, and I last worked on it that same month before we packed up and moved house. It has been sadly neglected ever since, at a mere 26 hexagons big.

April 2014

The main reason for this neglect is totally forgivable I think, as I was working like crazy to finish the Glastonbury and Walled Garden blankets, so I didn’t feel too bad about it.

But having realised how long it was since I had worked on it, and having begun yet another new project while the hexies were still on the go, I felt a bit bad. So I decided to crack on and sort out the horrible yarn mess that the movers had made of my stash. I sorted it back into plastic tubs (I couldn’t bring my lovely natural product yarn baskets) based on fibre – so acrylic is kept separate from wools – and also separated yarn allocated for specific projects so that it is easy to find when I come to it.

This meant that I now had 1 tub with all of the Cuddly Hexagons’ Stylecraft Life DK yarn neatly sorted, and while I was doing this I sort of fell back in love with this poor neglected project:)

I couldn’t resist this little smooshy pile of hexagonal hooky :)

I idly started work on it again in between other work – a few in between granny stripes. A few in between Frozen hooky bits, one here and there before heading out to meet people, or while having a tea break from building flat pack furniture (something very strange about me, I really enjoy putting together furniture!)

Very soon it was looking much more substantial, and I realised that I should record progress!!

My colour placement in this blanket is not truly random – it’s not planned and doesn’t follow a specific pattern or anything, but I do choose the colours with some deliberation. It’s much harder to keep the colours separate with hexagons than it is with squares, so I haven’t always managed to stick to my rules; but I aim to make it so that a) no hexagon is connected to the same outer colour as itself at all – easy! And b) no hexagon is joined to the same outer colour more than once – sounds easy enough, but I’ve managed to fail a couple of times! This doesn’t leap out at you though, so I’m not too bothered. Otherwise, I just try to keep it so that it doesn’t get too dark or too light in any one area, which I think is working.

I have two methods for choosing the colours, depending on how I feel. First up, if I’m feeling focussed, then I’ll look at the next space and decide the outer colour I want to put there.

Please excuse the poor picture quality - not great light when I took these! And the blue is nowhere near that bright!

Then I’ll choose the 3^rd round colour that I think will look good with it…

Then the 2^nd and 1^st rounds – you get the idea :)

With the colours lined up, it’s easy to get hooking – round 1…

And 2 and 3…

Then the final round hooks it into place, joining as I go :)

REALLY bad light now, sorry!

If I’m feeling less organised, or I just don’t fancy thinking too much about it because I’m watching TV or something, then I’ll just hook up a little pile of circles (the first 3 rounds).

Then later on I’ll sit and decide what outer colour would look good for each circle, and where that would fit in the blanket. Easy!

So easy, that in just a few days the hexies have grown into this! Yay!

It's still a long way off being an actual blanket, but it's good to see it come back to life rather than languishing in a messy heap. As this is a for-me-blanket, then I'm sure it will continue to take a back seat to other projects for others as they come up, but I know it will be happy to see me whenever I do pick it up and work on it!