Not all hexagons are equal

I should be out working today - getting a garden looking at it's best for a 'socially distancing garden party' tomorrow, complete with lights and suitably spaced outdoorsy furniture...... it is raining .... so I am hanging on until this afternoon when the weather has promised to improve - fingers crossed!

Any way, that means I can indulge myself in a little down time - with a coffee and blog catch up.

Something I have held off sharing was this beehive hexi-lapghan as it was meant (originally) as a birthday gift for the beginning of June and it caught me by surprise how long it took me. 

I didn't have a pattern - just an idea - so as it grew (but not big enough or fast enough) more and more hexis had to be made. They were a joy to do - only took a few minutes each however, weaving in the ends slowed down progress.

The blankie was taken on a few road trips so I could weave in ends then too.

Laying out the colours was fun, I happily allowed some repeats to run through the random placements and then the marathon started...... connecting all the hexis together 

The flat 'zipper-stitch' (a sort of slip stitch that collected loops from two hexis) looked good but was

rather a slow method of connecting.

  

Then, as the blankie grew, I could feel that it was far too lightweight to have made a suitably snuggly laphan to be warm. So I rummaged around in my rather meagre fabric stash and found a lovely piece of cream fleece - PERFECT!

Once I had zipper-stitched all the hexis together and crocheted a single row around the perimetre, I then wove in another gazillion ends, washed and blocked it - what a difference that made! 

 

 Stitching the yarn to the fleece proved to be careful and slow work - but worth it.

Oops, 'imposter hexis' making an appearance!

The blankie was pinned and stitched to the fleece, followed by a decorative stitch around the edge of the hexagon shapes and finally I cut the fleece to echo the shape as the crochet blankie.  

The final hurrah was to add a small bee token to the lapghan, it took so long to arrive in the post that I was finally able to hand the blanket over a mere month and a half late!

What did discover was not all hexis are equal, some are more magnificent than others and some are ...well -  sort of token hexis of indiscriminate shape that almost border on free spirits!

Hexagons have only two ends to weave in which in theory sounds easy peasy but when there are nearly 200 hexis to do..... then all the zipper-stitch starting and ending ..... I suspect that is where the majority of the time doing the wip was spent.

Stitching on the fleece fabric was the best thing I could have done, it added warmth and weight and visual 'solidity' to the finished hexi-lapghan. 

I have just looked out the window and it is still dull and wet and cool - but at least the rain seems to have lessened - I may still be able to get out today (wearing a full set of waterproofs I hasten to add!) 

Have a lovely Wednesday xxxxxx