It all started with an urge to do some paper piecing. Every so often I feel the need to sew little hexagons together and make something pretty like these cases that I use to hold mini cross stitch projects.
I particularly like working with these mini hexagons where each side measures about 2 cm. It's fairly mindless hand sewing and that appeals to me; I like the slow rhythm of it all. So, I cut out lots of paper hexagons (quickly, using my Sizzix machine) and lots of fabric hexagons to cover them (slowly, by hand). I don't have a die of the right size to cut the fabric hexagons on the machine but I quite enjoyed choosing the fabrics and drawing round a template.
I used a selection of thirties fabrics, all of which I pulled out of my scrap baskets. I wasn't counting but I ended up with well over a hundred hexagons. Here they are once I'd tacked them over their papers.
It will take me a while to sew them all together but I've made a start.
I'm thinking of perhaps making a drawstring bag with them, possibly with a plain band where the drawstring goes but I shall have to see how big a piece of fabric I end up with. At the moment I'm just enjoying seeing them come together.
This project reminded me of something else I started years ago, this time involving tiny woven hexagons.
When I first got my Penny Loom I made a bit of a start on a Grandmother's Flower Garden but didn't get very far. I decided it was time to bring it out again and look how it's grown in the last week or so.
Now I'm back to building flowers. I shall need twice as many for the next round, not to mention more greens.
That little bundle at the top left of the photo is the hexagons that are either mixed colours or a colour I don't want to use (basically, the light brown). Maybe when I'm finished I'll have enough of these to turn into a pincushion or something. I'm hoping my flower garden will eventually be big enough to cover a small round table I have.
Of course these hexagon looms come in different sizes so I was tempted to get out my bigger one too. Hexagons woven on this one come out at about 5.5 cm per side.
Having wanted single colour shapes with my flower garden I thought I'd see how the yarn wove up on the bigger loom. Before I knew where I was, I had a whole new project started.
This one is all about random colours. The plan is to weave twenty hexagons out of each of the twenty shades of Bramble - I'm nothing if not ambitious - and then sew them all together into a patchwork blanket. I've started with the shade called Cloudberry and this is what the first fifteen look like.
Aren't they gorgeous? I love the process of weaving and seeing how the colours develop. This is my favourite yarn for weaving - actually, it's one of my favourite yarns full stop. I've knitted and crocheted with it quite a bit but the colours do different things when you weave them, Will I actually weave 400 of these? I don't know but I shall enjoy trying.
I haven't forgotten my woven squares I showed you last time either. I'm crocheting them together at the rate of one row per day, using a lacy join. I've just got the last row to add today and then I shall work out a border for it. The shade I used for this one is Thistle.
Is any one else as big a fan of this yarn as I am? And no, they haven't paid me to promote it, it's an honest opinion. I'm very pleased when they bring out new shades (as they have just done) as it shows it must be popular and isn't in danger of being discontinued.
Before I go, I thought you might like to see one more new project. This one is also lots of little shapes but this time the shapes in question are circles.
Can you see what they are? A knitted version of the popular fabric Yo-Yos. These are fun to sew; you can buy special Yo-Yo Makers but they're really just circles of fabric gathered round the edges. There are some lovely designs out there for crochet yo-yos, either single, flat ones or doubled puffs that are a closer match to the originals.
I also found a pattern for Loom Knit Yo-Yos which looked just what I wanted but there was a problem. They start with a drawstring cast on which is easy on a loom but with needles? I think you might be able to do it with some variation of the provisional cast on but, as I've never mastered that, I can't say. Instead I decided to re-invent the wheel so to speak and worked out my own drawstring cast on. Needless to say, it took hours and I kept having to stop to make copious notes on what I was doing before I forgot it. The result though is perfect knitted yo-yos.
As you can see, I've only knitted half a dozen so far but I have lots of plans for using these. Please tell me I'm not the only one who thinks being able to knit yo-yos is exciting!
