I recently participated in a pincushion swap with some of the ladies from the Akron Stitch ‘n Bitch group.
I spent a lot of time fretting over what kind of pincushion to make and decided on a nice, multi-colored pincushion crocheted out of Perle Cotton thread. The fun thing about this pincushion is that it is made up of eight hexagons that you join as you go! I love joining as I go because I hate seaming. I’ve been known to crochet all the squares for an afghan and then leave them stacked nice and neat for over a year so joining as I go is highly valuable to me.
I was able to quickly crochet this pincushion up over the weekend. I really liked this pincushion and was a little disappointed to swap it away. The day of the swap, I gave my beloved pincushion away to Pam after I had received my pincushion from Amy. Would you believe that Amy crocheted me the exact same pincushion? I couldn’t believe it either. I was so excited!
All the pincushion business has gotten me in the mood to use hexagons. The fun thing about crocheting with motifs is that they work up quickly. The hexagonal shape in itself is visually interesting and therefore eliminates extra work, like the need to add a border, for example. Of course, you could always do that, but I like to keep things simple (or perhaps I’m a bit lazy). Additionally, depending on the pattern of your hexagon, you can join as you go.
I was brainstorming what I could do with a hexagon and have decided to use the pattern to work up my sock yarn blanket. In case you haven’t heard about sock yarn blankets, they’re simply knitted blankets made up using small scraps of sock yarn (about 20-25 yards per sock yarn square). If you’re a fast knitter, then this probably isn’t a problem. I however, knit incredibly slowly and after having accumulated close to 100 tiny balls of sock yarn (and having only knit 6 squares in four months) have come to realize that a knitted sock yarn blanket may just take me the rest of my life. I settled on using the scraps to crochet up hexagons instead, each being approximately 4” across at the widest point. In the course of an hour I was able to work up three hexagons. This blanket will definitely go much faster than my previous knitted version. Now, if only I could find someone to ball up all those tiny hanks of yarn.
Read more about guest blogger Andrea Sanchez.
I think we need to find a naive teenager, or college freshman to do all the annoying things about crafting, such as winding small balls of yarn. We can tell them that it is an unpaid internship at a small business.
I think I’m beginning to understand why I learned to ball up yarn at such a young age!
Devona, your oldest is probably old enough to try to help you with that very important task…
Yeah, she probably is, but I like to make my balls center-pull, and I doubt she could do that without tangling them up.
I really like this hexagon pattern. I could see it as a table runner or a funky necklace if i used little hooks & thin string.
Necklace sounds awesome! Or… I’ve seen crochet wire, that would look really cool in the hexagon pattern.
I’d love to play with this…is there a pattern somewhere, for those of us who aren’t quite up to figuring it out on our own?