The Giant Hexagonal Blanket

                                  

Back at the end of January I posted a peak of these tiny little emerging hexagons.  I had been thinking for a while of what I could make my son.  As a 13 year old boy he is quite difficult to buy anything for that isn't a gadget, never mind MAKE something for.  Then it came to me - a blanket.  The reality is it will only be another 5 years before he is (most likely)  going off to university (he is a bit of a maths/science genius if i do say so myself) and I wanted to give him something that will last.  Giant hexagons just seemed to fit him.  We had also just put up a new blind in his room  and I felt the whole room needed a bit more colour.

They slowly started to grow.  At this point I had also worked out that if I did them about 12 inches big then I would only need the amount that I had already done (32) to make a whole blanket - easy maths!

I did at this point have to purchase some more yarn!

Until finally they were ready to put together

The pattern I used was very simple I'll have a go at explaining it using UK terms :

Chain 5 and join the last chain to the first to form a circle, chain 3 (counts as first treble).
Row 1: complete 6 lots of (3 treble crochet chain 1) in the circle just formed - remember to include the first chain 3.
Row 2: In the first chain 1 space chain 3, 1 treble crochet, chain one, two treble crochet.  (two treble crochet, chain 1, two treble crochet) in each of the chain one spaces (6 sets completed in total)
Row 3: Slip stitch to first chain one space.  Chain 3, treble crochet, chain one, two treble crochet in this space.  (Two treble crochet in space between the next two treble crochet.  Two treble crochet, chain one, two treble crochet in next chain one space).
Row 4 and beyond, continue in the above style ensuring that you only do two sets of treble crochet, chain 1, in the chain one spaces and just two treble crochet in all the other spaces.

Does that make sense?  Do let me know if I have written it down wrong.  You can then continue until you have enough hexagons to do what you would like to do.

I finished my blanket off using a different colour to join - again using the same pattern to do the joining

I had to complete 6 half hexagons to finish the sides neatly before doing a border:

I was rather pleased with the border design, I had very little yarn left so used what I had to compliment the red.  Row one was a straight double crochet all around, row two with the white yarn was a double crochet chain one, miss one,  double crochet in the next, all the way around.  Row three was a straight double crochet in all stitches (including the chain one).  Row four was a long stitch created by hooking into the space between the white stitches before completing it into a double crochet stitch, chain one, etc all the way round.  Row five was a straight double crochet in all stitches around.  What do you think?  Are you ready for the full ta-dah?

TA_DAH

Completed in just one month.  There is one thing for when there is crisis and tragedy occurring in your family life, it can sometimes help you to concentrate on your crochet!