My autumn crochet hexagon blanket is growing

Blanket making has become a bit of an obsession at this point in my crochet journey. A bit rashly, I started three blankets this autumn to keep me going through the long evenings of winter. But at my rate of progress, they might not all be finished in time for next winter…

My seascape ripple blanket, started during my short break on the Northumberland coast in October is moving very slowly at the moment. Its only grown by a single row in the last four weeks. Instead, I have been focusing on my Attic24 cosy CAL blanket (I’m on the edge with that one) and doing some slow but steady work on my chunky crochet hexagon blanket inspired by autumn.

This is the first blanket that I’ve chosen the colours for myself – they are not very revolutionary but the skill involved in working out how colours go together is substantial, so I am taking baby steps.

The process of choosing the colours was a bit of a faff but I finally arrived at a spreadsheet colour scheme that I then printed out to start following. The first four hexagons came together nicely. Using a join-as-you-go technique, I am enjoying seeing the blanket materialise straight away. I think if I had to make all the hexagons and then sew them together, I would get bored and never get them all done.

The good thing about a blanket made of hexagons is that you can work on the individual rounds very quickly so I put all of my Stylecraft chunky yarn and the expanding blanket into my wicker basket so that I can move it up to the office and around the house to fit in a round in coffee breaks, at lunch time and at odd moments.

Within a few days I had produced a hexagon flower motif. This shows all of the colours I will be using and how the individual hexagons have dark innards, medium tone edges and are brightened by a third round of a much lighter colour – either camel, cream or parchment. This looks just as I had intended – it has a sort of 1970s retro look and in all the autumn tones that I wanted to feature.

 Just adding three more hexagons makes a substantial block of hexagons.

 In close up the chunkiness of the blanket is more obvious.

 At this size this makes a perfect hexagon blanket for my wicker chair.

 On one of the bright days we had in early December, I put a throw on the garden table and took some pictures of the blanket in the wintery afternoon sun.

Its looking bold and beautiful.

I’ve just finished the 16th hexagon motif and added that in. The v-shaped edges are nice but the gaps between the hexagons on the two other sides look a bit large. These hexagons are almost 20 cm across so I think I am going to fill those in using half hexagons. I’ll have to sit down and learn how to do that over Christmas.

 Doing so many blankets using different colours, I’ve ended up with a lot of these.

I was going to use them to stuff some crochet Christmas baubles but haven’t quite got round to doing them yet. And I’ve seen a better idea – using PVA glue to make a yarn end bowl. That’s definitely going to be an afternoon messing about when my daughter gets home for Christmas from the USA next week 🙂