I pre-ordered Susan Pinner’s first book Granny Squares and fell in love with her hexagon blanket. I’ve changed it a little by using 3 colours in my circles instead of just two and varying the stitch patterns so I wouldn’t get bored! Her blanket was only 41” x 23” but I wanted something nearly 3 times that size.
I’m using all acrylic yarns, mostly Robin, to use up lots of odds and ends.
I was hoping I’d only have to make about 160 circles but having joined 6 of them together today to measure them properly as finished hexagons, I think I may need closer to 220!!! (Nov update - hopefully 189 plus some half hexagons should be enough, plus a 4” border…)
They don’t take long to make though, I can do 4 an hour including stitching in all the ends - there’s no way I was going to leave all the ends to stitch in last! I’m joining them with cream/ivory to help make the circles look really vibrant.
Update - I’m 6 months in now and have completed over 130 hexagons, with one in the middle and 6 rings around it. I’ve “squared off” the 4 corners and started going back and forth in rows to increase the length. Need to stop and make more circles though…
9 months in and I only have 2 rows to add before I start on the border!!

Thinking about the border, I’ve done a bit of searching and found -
http://www.ravelry.com/projects/victoriaoc/hexagon-how-to-2
and
http://cocorosetextiles.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/circus-pat...

There’s no pattern on Coco Rose Diaries but I like the way she straightened the zig zag edge and one of the comments took me here-
http://meanyjar.blogspot.co.uk/2013_01_01_archive.html

Completely different from the simple picot edging on Sue’s inspirational blanket. We’ll see though. The edge is a long way off yet!

Update 19 Jan ‘14 - I used Jeany’s method of straightening the zig-zag edges and adjusted the stitch count to be one less in the middle but otherwise it worked a treat. Thanks Jeany!! Mine’s a bit wibbly but I’ll do a row of double crochet and add half trebles to try and straighten it properly, before adding the rest of the border. Now for the half hexagons!

5th Feb - the border is underway!!! I decided to go with the block stitch from Victoria’s blanket (see first link above) with alternating rows of ivory and coloured loops. The colours were going to be radomly spaced but afterwards I realised they produced quite a regular rainbow effect that is very pleasing. Victoria suggested using a hook one size smaller for the border, which I did and my border is beautifully flat as a result!!

After a quick wash and stretching it out to dry on the carpet, it is now on the bed and I LOVE IT!!!

Thankyou ladies for the lovely blogs, ideas and clear instructions that helped me make my blanket.

Tina xXx

PS I used just under 650g of ivory but haven’t managed to weigh the blanket to know how much yarn I used in total.

PPS I calculated that there were around 2000 ends to stitch in - yes, TWO THOUSAND!! My tip would be cut the yarn and darn it in. Immediately!