Cotton Hexagons

I had pinned this image a little while ago, from Happy in Red. 

I thought the pattern would make a good simple doily or an interesting blanket patch, so I worked it out from the picture and made a couple of practice ones.

Then recently I was feeling restless – better enough to want do stuff, but not better enough to do much…

I decided on having a go at something new – a top for myself made out of cotton that I had bought for this purpose quite a while ago.

Digging out the cotton and scouring the internet for ideas, it soon became apparent that I hadn’t bought enough of any one colour to make a top (back then I had no idea how much yarn it takes to make anything!). I was frustrated! But I was determined to do something new.

A bit of fussing later, and I had decided to make a cotton blanket. Here in north Queensland at the moment we barely even need a sheet to sleep under, but in the tropical winter it might be a bit cooler at night. Plus we should be moving away from the tropics at some point so we will definitely have cooler nights then.

So a cotton blanket seemed to me to be a reasonable thing to own…

My cotton yarn was Patons 100% cotton DK, 2 balls each of Jade, Nectarine and Cream, so I was thinking of coloured patches with a cream edging.

I made a patch in each of the Jade and Nectarine, using a 5mm hook as I wanted the crochet to be a bit looser than my usual work. Cotton being a bit of a stiffer yarn, I wanted looser stitches so that the finished thing would be more drapey. And I loved how they turned out! This pattern is clearly meant to go with cotton :)

It is such an easy pattern to hook up, so simple and quick yet quite intricate. Keeping the same colour for each patch = less ends to sew in too, adding to the relaxed smooth hooking. So smooth in fact that I had soon used up an entire ball of each colour!

I returned to the stash and found part balls of a light blue (Denim I think) and a pink (pretty sure it’s Candy). I hooked up these until they were all gone too. 

Then I found a scrap of orange (Neroli I think) and had just enough for two patches.

I tried to ration myself with my remaining ball of Jade and Nectarine. Not very successfully! This pattern proved very addictive, and I had soon used up all of the Jade yarn.

I now have just one ball of Nectarine to see me through until I have enough money to place an order back to the UK – I can only find Patons Cotton Blend here, none of the 100% cotton, so I need to make a whole order to reduce shipping rather than being able to stock up a little at a time… And I might add some new colours into the mix too… Oh the possibilities!! 

*** I have since found out that the pattern comes from a Dutch Marie Claire book. If you fancy having a go though, I found a very similar pattern here. It's a Spanish blog, but it includes a chart. The only thing I did differently (apart from only using one colour) is to miss out the 1-chain from in between the trebles on the final round.