Posted on 14 Comments

Crochet-along! Choosing colors

13 hexes 01

Are you interested in working on a hexagon blanket alongside me? I’m almost ready to post the first tutorial: how to crochet a hexagon, and how to join it to a second hexagon. Assuming I don’t have the flu, I will get that written up and posted by tomorrow.

(I have a slight fever and a little headache. With a husband at home recovering from surgery [he can’t drive yet, and he shouldn’t be getting exposed to germs while he’s still healing], and nobody to transport the kids to/from school, not to mention the Clayathon looming in a few days, this is really not a good time to get sick. With luck, it’s all in my head. Either way, I’ve consumed a tube of oscillococcinum, started drinking lots of water, and am hoping for the best. Wish me luck.)

Anywho, while you wait for my tutorial, maybe you want to start thinking about yarn colors?

colors

Boring Office Guy‘s mandate for this blanket was clear: it should remind him of being in a lakeside forest. I had what I thought were nice colors picked out, but he vetoed the use of my precious greeny-blues, and instead determined that we needed more green greens, and more blue blues. (The nerve! heh.) I suggested adding browns, too, being there is plenty of brown in the forest, and he agreed.

Above are the colors we settled on for our blanket. I can’t tell you specifically yet how much yarn we will need, since I haven’t finished the blanket yet, but I will tell you how much I think we’ll need based on the weight of the last blanket I made: roughly 2600-2800 yards. I bought twenty-one 217-yard hanks of Berroco Vintage (which is probably about eight too many). I purchased two hanks of each of the palest three colors, and one of each of the other fifteen.

This is the same brand of yarn I used for Flufy’s granny square blanket. I like this yarn for blanket-making, and I find that by sticking to the same brand every time, I can always put the leftovers to good use for the next blanket(s).

Vintage is a wool/acrylic/nylon blend. It’s affordable, as LYS brands go, but it’s still not as cheap as, say, Patons, Lion Brand, or Red Heart. If price is an important factor (and, let’s face it, when is it not these days?) you can surely replace the Berroco with something less spendy.

My personal feeling is that you should buy the best quality yarn your budget will allow. If you’ve ever gone to a thrift shop and seen someone’s once-precious acrylic afghans hanging there, woebegone and full of pills, you’d think twice about using the cheap stuff that was so prevalent in the 70’s. We’ve got so many more choices these days! The more we can do to keep our hard work from becoming bedraggled thrift shop blankets somewhere down the line, the better.

Ok. Moving on… 😉

sample

As you can see, each hexagon follows a pattern: light center, medium stripe, dark stripe. This will be  9 hex x 11 hex blanket, and so each color family – green, blue, brown – will have 33 hexes, more or less. (Let’s not worry right now about the partial motifs.)

You’ll need to choose light, medium, and dark shades for each of your three color families, whatever they may be. If you want to keep your life simple, stick with nine total colors, as opposed to the eighteen I chose. My color scheme includes one light shade, three mediums and two darks for each color family in an attempt to include more depth of color in the finished blanket, but you certainly can choose to only have one light shade, one medium and one dark, like so:

colors_alt

I would recommend 400 yards of the palest colors, and 250 yards of each of the other colors, in this case. Like I said, though, this is just an estimate. If you would prefer to know for sure how much yarn the final blanket will require, you’ll have to wait until I’ve finished crocheting it!

If you’re not into the lakeside forest look, another nice color combination might be aqua-chartreuse-red.

colors_alt_2

It’s a personal favorite, and probably what I would have done if this blanket was going to be for me. I like aqua-pink-mustard, too, and maybe something with pumpkin, but I’ll leave those to you to figure out. I can’t spend all afternoon copying and pasting yarn swatches, as much as I might enjoy it (and I do, actually, quite enjoy it).

In addition to yarn, you’ll need a G hook, a yarn needle, and a small pair of scissors.

Got all that? If so, time to go yarn shopping! If not, feel free to leave questions for me in the comments.

GET THE EBOOK

All of the instructions and step-by-step photos for the entire project are available in this handy PDF. Click the thumbnail below for more details 🙂

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Posted on 14 Comments

14 thoughts on “Crochet-along! Choosing colors

  1. I am so tempted to bust out my credit card and buy all the yarn I need to make this blanket right now. (Still trying to remember why that’s a bad idea…)

    1. I know what you mean! I always hesitate before big yarn purchases like this.

      Linda Permann once told me that she considers yarn part of her entertainment budget. I think that’s very smart! I get more enjoyment out of a skein of yarn than I do a movie ticket 🙂

      1. Ha, that’s a great way to look at it 🙂

  2. luv the shades of blue…looking fwd to seeing the end result..

    1. I wasn’t sold on these colors at first, but they are definitely growing on me!

      1. HA! I TOLD YOU THEY WOULD!

  3. What did you say about my nerve?!

  4. This is such a beautiful project. I can’t wait to see the tutorial. 🙂

  5. […] but feel free to use any of your own color families you prefer. The post on choosing colors is here, in case you missed […]

  6. Hi Lisa!

    I’m from Portugal and I just found your blog through Ravelry. Love the blog (at least what i’ve seen so far…) and would like to let you know that I´m joining your cal! This project is exactly what I was looking for :).

    1. I’m glad to hear that! I hope you enjoy the CAL! I’ll be posting another lesson on Monday.

  7. […] way back at the beginning we talked about choosing yarn for your blanket? If you haven’t seen that post, go ahead and take a look. I’ll […]

  8. Colour choices made, I’ve gone for purples 🙂
    http://bekaboodesigns.wordpress.com/crochet-along-projects-im-doing/

    1. Oh, very cool! I look forward to seeing your progress. It’s always fun to see somebody else’s vision of your project 🙂

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