Posts Tagged ‘hexagon’

Joining Ridge

I mentioned back around Christmas that I was tired of joining my motifs with the whip-stitch. So, I decided, in the spirit of NatCroMo, to give the sc join a second chance.

Some folks really like this join, and I’d always secretly thought that they’d talked themselves into liking it because it was faster and more fun than whip-stitching. I have to admit, it’s starting to grow on me!

DSC03878

It’s not hard to do, as I mentioned, you just hold the two motifs together and do sc stitches into a stitch on each of them, at the same time. Hold them right-side out if you want the ridge on the front, and right sides together if you want it on the back.

Curiouser and curiouser

I got all of my hexagons finished:

DSC03870

They each measure about 5″ from side to side. I’m thinking of joining them with sc stitches… I’ve never really liked the look of that joining method, but I’m going to give it another try, as whip-stitching them all together isn’t my idea of fun.

It’s NatCroMo; I’m supposed to have fun!

Minus Two

Hey look, a hexagon!
DSC03868

Here’s the (lazy) pattern:

R1: *dc, ch1* 6 times
R2: *3dc in ch1 sp, ch1* 6 times
R3: *3dc, ch1, 3dc all in ch1 sp* 6 times
R4: 1dc in each previous dc, *dc, ch1, dc* in ch1 sp (8 dc per side)
R5: same as R4 (10 dc per side)

I’ve made a few of them:
DSC03867

What could I possibly be up to? ^_-

“Normal” is what other people do

So, I was working on Maddie’s present on Christmas Eve. That’s nothing!

I made these dishcloths for my cousin on Christmas day!
DSC03631
(As an aside, I think this is my favourite way to wrap dishcloths: just a pretty bit of ribbon and tie in a bow.)

On Boxing Day, Mom and I went up to Michaels to see what was on sale (hint: yarn was!), and to use the gift card I got from my brother and his family (he’s the one with the daughters… clearly, they know where the handmade goods come from ^_-). We also went out to Mary Maxim in Paris, Ontario.

Because I was running dangerously low, I bought some more yarn. Including some in a lovely teal colour that you’ll see more of tomorrow, some wine coloured Bernat Satin Sport (I know, I usually don’t use this, but the pattern I have in mind needs something a bit thinner than my usual), and some dark blue Satin…

… which I used to finish Dad’s present. You may remember this picture:
one-five

I made the hexagons for this blanket in about 3 days. It made an excellent subway/work project. That is, until it was time to sew them all together. It took *forever*. I think it will be a very long time before I decide to whip-stitch motifs together again! Watch for future posts about experimenting with joining methods, coming soon. Very soon.

Anyhow, here is the blanket when Dad received it:
DSC03629
(Check out the sweet stockings my mom had made over the years, there on the right)

And here it is finished, and going extremely and accidentally well with that chair that I forgot my parents had:
DSC03637

I’m particularly happy with the borders. I’m never happy with the edges on hexagon motif blankets. Two of the sides are ok, kind of a ripple, but the other two are very boxy-looking. I don’t normally like experimenting with presents (we’re just ignoring the original present idea right now) but this turned out really well, I think!

So, let’s have a show of hands: how many people think I’m going to keep adding border rounds on that blanket every time I visit?

Need for Speed

I’m totally switching gears on a project. I’m not going to get into too much detail here, but I will one day. At any rate, I’m in full Christmas Gift Making swing and thought I’d try something new today.

I’ve got a need for speed and I’m going to blog about it!

I’m making a blanket for a rather tall individual. I decided on a hexagon pattern (I haven’t made one in a while!), and this is what I got done last night while watching Castle:

one-five

I only just noticed this morning that the first hex looks kind of Settler of Catan-ish. I’m thinking of maybe switching up the sizes of the tan-middles… we’ll see.

I’ll update this post tonight with how much I get done today. Wish me luck!

*****

Look!

DSC03513

That’s 14 finished hexagons, all ends woven in except the last one… I’ll probably use those to join them.

Here’s a closer look:

DSC03514

I’m back to watching Castle again, and making some Granny’s Daughter squares. It’s just the first round of a regular granny square (*3dc ch2* 4 times).

Tying up loose ends

Literally! All I’ve had to do on this latest baby blanket for the last week or so is to weave in a couple of ends. I finally did so today, and voila!

blue and yellow baby blanket

This was made using my standard round ripple pattern, though I didn’t have enough of either colour left to make the backwards-sc edging, so I did some slip stitches around instead. I just don’t like leaving those chains bare on the points!

I also finally got around to finishing the Settlers of Catan blanket:
Settlers of Catan blanket

I feel I must apologize for the indoor picture, but there just wasn’t any way to properly display this outside (which should make showing it at BOB interesting!)

At this point in the “prepping for BOB” game, I’m just finishing off projects I’ve started already, and not starting anything new. That means that we can expect to see one more baby blanket, a handful of pin cushions, and a couple more Tetris pieces. Depending on when I finish all of that, I *might* start another baby blanket; after all, I’m going to need SOMEthing to do while manning the table, right?

How to join hexagon motifs

Just a quick post tonight, but I think you’ll like it!

How to efficiently join hexagon motifs together.

Step 1: lay out the motifs how you want them. (Not pictured… I worked off of the pic of the last Catan blanket I made)

Step 2: Start joining the hexes together in horizontal lines. For example, start with the motif in the bottom left and join it to the one to its right. Then join the one to the right of that. And so on until you reach the end of that row. Then start in on the next row and work the same way, until you have something like this:
Settlers of Catan blanket - in progress
(I know, it’s a terrible picture, and white was a bad choice for the background, but the other option was a blue floral print. In my defense, I tried that one first, but mostly because I was too lazy to turn the blanket over… but it was worse than this pic, so…)

Step 3: Once you have your rows all laid out, start sewing them together as per the blue line:
how to join hexagon motifs

That red line is how I’m going to join the blue water hexes. I’m doing it that way because I want to use the cream colour to join the water hexes to the others, but want to use blue yarn to join them to each other.

The red line could also represent putting a border on.

That’s all there is to it! (Ok, I lie… there’s also, “what method should I use for joining?” I’m using a whip stitch, but you could slip stitch or sc, or flat braid, or… )

More Motifs

My second swap partner, MareMare, received the motifs I sent her. If you’re curious, here they are, along with the patterns I used for them:

Haley’s Comet – from Crochet Stitch Motifs – 250 Stitches To Crochet, page 61:
Haley's Comet crochet motif

Mediterranean Circle – from Crochet Stitch Motifs – 250 Stitches To Crochet, page 209:
Mediterranean Circle crochet motif

Dream Weaver:
Dream Weaver crochet motif

Flower Petal Dishcloth and Potholder:
Flower Petal Dishcloth and Potholder crochet motif

Four round standard granny square (with Boa!) :
Granny square crochet motif with Boa yarn

Tunisian Short Row Dishcloth:
swirly hexagon

Star To Star – from Crochet Stitch Motifs – 250 Stitches To Crochet, page 214:
Star To Star crochet motif

Lesson of the Day

I tried out my double-ended circular hooks last night. Well, they didn’t really work for what I wanted to do, though.

What I wanted to do was this:
red wedge

What IS “this”?

Well, it’s my attempt at the short row tunisian dishcloth pattern in a blanket size. There’s six wedges, and I love rainbows, so it seemed natural to do six colours in rainbow order.

So I started the orange wedge:
red and orange wedges

Now, I started with a full ball of the red and had lots left over. I started with a full ball of the orange and ran out about three and a half rows short. No big deal! Just another excuse to go stash diving.

No more orange? $@#&!

I could probably get away with one less row, but three? And a half?
close up

Luckily I found some in the scrap stash, but is it enough?
scrap orange

It was! And I’d love to show you a picture of it. But the batteries in my camera died after taking this shot:
Lollipop baby blanket

I think it’s the finished Lollipop blanket. Do you think it needs a border?

The Results Are In!

A couple of days ago I posed a question about a blanket layout. I didn’t just post it here, but also on Twitter and Craftster. The response was overwhelming, and who am I to ignore the masses?

So, tonight I started sewing together all of the finished green hexagons I had so far, using the winning layout (despite the winner being the opposite of the way I was leaning).

Here are the first two joined:
two hexagons

Looking good! Looking good!

What?

Oh! You went and looked at the various places I did the poll, eh? Well, aren’t you the thorough little blog reader!

Ok, I confess. I *meant* to join them the other way. I’m not sure what happened here. Don’t worry, though; I ripped out the stitching and did it right the second time:

nine joined hexagons

I’m getting annoying little gaps in the corners, so I’m going to have to do something about that at some point. I’ll decide exactly what that something is once I get the whole blanket together.

Today at work I made some progress on the yellow star blanket:
yellow star blanket
I think one more work day and it’ll be done.

I’ll leave you for today with this final thought:

You know you’re a yarnaholic when you come home to find your stuffed bear reading one of your knitting books:
Roopurt reading a Yarn Harlot book