Easy Polka Dots with Hexagons

Designing with hexagons can be tricky, but it is also full of amazing surprises: This blog is about how easy it is to achieve Polka dot effects with hexagons!

Let’s start with looking at a small block of six hexagons (top left of the following graph). They are arranged in two rows, three hexagons each row. The first row has the sequence of “background, background, dot”. If you feel like dancing, you could say “skip, skip, dot”. The second row starts with a dot and has two background hexagons that follow.

Because of hexagon geometry, the dots between the rows are offset just right to make a classical Polka dot pattern.

Now you just need to repeat those “steps” within each row, and repeat those two rows, to any size you like. There you have your polka dot pattern!

To demonstrate, I made a Polka Dot Cowl in autumn colors … and did I mention that cowls are perfect medium size pin-loom projects, perfect for trying out crafting ideas … and perfect for gift giving?

The Autumn Cowl was woven on the TinyTURTLE™ Loom F-Fine sett with a yarn that is unfortunately discontinued (WEBS Camp Color Fingering, colors Audiophile and Somewhere Over the Rainbow). You can substitute any sock/fingering weight yarn or use the TinyTURTLTE™ Loom R-Regular sett with worsted weight yarns.

If you like the background plaid effect of the sample cowl, look for a yarn with “micro stripes”. Here are two examples:

Tempe Yarn’s Desert Garden is dyed with TURTLE looms in mind.

The variegated yarn on the left is Dusty Miller, on the right is Lupine. A suggestion for the dots is Desert Shades in Merlot (the “real” colors are actually more vibrant than in this photo).

Call the store for assistance at 480-557-9166 while they are updating their online shop.

In my stash I had these yarns from the Chaos Fiber Co.

The Micro-Stripe color is Birthday Party, combined with “dots” of Tonal Minis in Turquise Pop, Hot Pink, Hot Orange, and Lemon Drop. Use one or all!

The cowl measures about 21.5″ in the round and is about 9″ tall. You can easily change the size by adding/subtracting rows and repeats. The modeled cowl for example has one extra repeat, which brings it to 27″ in the round.

Here is the chart for making the cowl:

For your own Polka dot projects, and no matter which hexagons you’re using, here is a Hexagon Polka Dot Design chart for you. Print it in landscape layout for best results. If you need a larger chart, print and tape together as many copies as you need.

I hope that you enjoy this little lesson in “Designing with Hexagons”. There’s more to explore in these articles on the Handwoven/Little Looms website.

Lastly, if you are curious (like I was) about the origins of Polka dots, here is an article that I enjoyed reading about the history of polka dot patterns.

I want to thank Gale Zuckerwww.gzucker.com, on Instagram @galezucker, for her amazing ability to bring out the best of a hand-crafted item in photography, and to Josephine Ankrah, Instagram @sweetjsphn, for perfectly modeling the Polka Dot Cowl.

The TURTLEs are looking forward to seeing your Polka dot projects!

Hexie Love Blanket

Happy Valentine’s Day to all! My gift to all of you is this pattern for a heart-shaped heart blanket that I call “Hexie Love Blanket”. And it’s not just for Valentine’s! Make it to welcome a new baby, as a wedding shower gift, or a “Thank you, Mom” blanket for Mother’s Day. The centers of the flowers offer a great space to embroider a name, a date, or a little message!

A reason why I designed this blanket is that I want to show how using hexagons in different directions can effect shapes: Depending on how you turn the hexagons, you’ll get a “slim” or a “wide” heart. I wrote about this in the article “Designing with Hexagons: Basic Concepts” … and now you have a project to try it out!

Yarn: I used Hobby Lobby “I Love this Yarn” in colors 466 Drizzle Me This (2 balls) and 950 Pink Neon (1 ball). Of course you can use any colors of your choice … the design would also be great in patchwork colors or colors of the 1960ties or 70ties!

You will need about 500 yds of the background/border color and 250 yds for the hearts and flowers.

Loom: The blanket weaves up quickly on the Original TURTLE Loom™ in R-regular sett for worsted weight yarns. The finished blanket will measure about 42″ wide and 39″ tip-to-top. If you want to make a larger blanket, you could use the same pattern with the TexaTURTLE™ in R-regular sett.

Ready to Weave?

Weave:
(55) white hexagons
(38) red hexagons
(4) white half hexagons (Half A, click here for instructions)
(2) red half hexagons (Half A)

Use the chart to assemble the blanket. I recommend that you turn the chart and begin at the right side. Sew the hexagons into rows first, then rows to rows. A simple whip stitch will be fine. You can see how I sew hexagons together in the Elf Basket video on YouTube.

Sew in any remaining ends and clip to about 1/4″ (the ends will settle during blocking, after which you can do a final clip if needed).

You can add the half hexagons right away, or insert them into their spaces when the rest of the blanket is assembled, as shown here:

Optionally, add a nice touch with a crocheted border. I used the same yarn and a crochet hook G-6/4mm.

The first round is single crochet (sc) stitches. Start anywhere, joining the yarn with a slip stitch. The next picture shows how many stitches to work … along the sides where the yarn makes complete turns, work one stitch in each turn. Along the sides where the yarn makes wavy turns, work 2 sc, skip the next yarn turn, work 3 sc, skip the next yarn turn, work 2 sc. Work 2 sc into each corner, work sc2tog into each bend.

At the end of the row, join with a slip stitch into the first sc.

For the second round, work scallops as follows: Skip 2, then work 5 double crochet (dc) into the next stitch. Skip 2, work 1 sc into the next stitch. Repeat all around the blanket (adjust with sc at the end if there’s not enough space for another scallop).

Join with a slip stitch into the top of the first dc. Break the yarn, weave in remaining ends.

Block as desired. Clip yarn ends if needed.

Enjoy your blanket, and share pictures!

Six Ways to Make Half Hexagons

If you put multiple hexagons together to make a project, you may notice that the edgings are in most cases not straight, but more or less zig zag. While this can be a nice design element, there are times where you just want to have that “straight line”. This is where half hexagons come to the rescue, to fill in the gaps. But … why six ways?

As with hexagons, half hexagons also have their own geometry story to tell. For example, there are two ways to half a hexagon:

Hexagon A folds along the longest diameter, which makes a shape that is shown here. We call it Hexagon A, because it seems to be the more commonly used half hexagon form in fiber arts.

Hexagon B folds along a side of a hexagon, which makes a shape that is shown here.

You can weave these two shapes of half hexagons in different ways:

  • Weave a full hexagon and then fold it in half. It’s not cheating! This approach can add strength to a border where you want it, for example around a blanket or for a garment opening, like the front of the Hope vest.
  • Weave half hexagons on your TURTLE loom and use a tool to bridge the missing side. This is a great when you need a small number of half hexagons to complete a design, for example for the Wings Shawl.
  • Use a TURTLE half hexagon loom. Having a special half hexagon loom for weaving comfort makes sense when you want to make projects that require a lot of half hexagons.  The first half hexagon looms will become available in 2022.

Two ways to half a hexagon, three methods to weave them … six ways to make half hexagons!

This blog includes instructions for weaving the two forms of half hexagons on current TURTLE looms. The weaving method is the same on all TURTLE looms, no matter how big or small your loom is, or if it’s regular or fine sett, or if you are weaving regular or elongated hexagons.

Download the guide to weaving half hexagons on TURTLE hexagon pin looms:

There are many more stories to tell about half hexagons, and we will do so here on this blog, over time. Sign up to be notified about new blog posts so that you don’t miss anything!

All rights reserved. Contact us if you have any questions.

Did you find the bonus treat?

Designing with Hexagons – Going 3D (Part 2)

Ready for more 3D? Handwoven posted the next blog article about designing with hexagons … Part 2 of Going 3D covers sharing hexagons between layers, fun ways to gain volume and change width, and a few handy tips.

Read the article: Designing with Hexagons: Going 3D (Part 2)

For your convenience, here is a list of all projects mentioned in the article.
Please note that if you are now a subscriber to Little Looms magazine, you will have access to all projects that were published in previous issues!

Forget-Me-Not Pillow
Cocoa Bear, in Little Looms Holiday 2020
This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 20180929_163151_resized.jpgAspen Clutch, in Little Looms 2019
20180512_123357_resized (2)Grape Table Topper, in Little Looms 2018
IMG_3494Grape Pillow
Stuffed Toys A Sheep and a Pig Hexagon Pin Loom image 2Stuffed Pig Toy
Flower Power Emoji Meter
GVt 22nd century hat22nd Century Hat
sloth GVTWell, you already know him, but here’s the link again …
Take it Like a Sloth!

Go ahead, go 3D!

Designing with Hexagons – Going 3D (Part 1)

The next article from the “Designing with Hexagons” series is now available on the Handwoven website. The title is “Going 3D”, and the article will come in two parts, because there is so much to tell about making things with “just hexagons”.

Read the article now:
Designing with Hexagons: Going 3D (Part 1)

We hope that you will enjoy the article and find it useful.

“Do you have instructions for those projects?” – Yes, we do, for most of them. Here is a list of links …

Sloth
Bear Ornament
Flower Petals (just follow
the instructions in the article
and use as shown).
Turtle Mascot
Mouse
Pickle Ornament
Motorbike
Amulet Pouch
Coin Purse
Paint Drop Toss Game
Coming soon …

The Lozenges Scarf – A Bias Study Project

If you have that one skein of precious, beautiful worsted weight yarn, here is a project suggestion for you … You can use the bias fabric feature, as it is described in the article “Designing with Hexagons: Basic Concepts”, to stretch your one skein supply and make a cool scarf on your TexaTURTLE loom!

Here is how it goes: Weave up your skein into hexagons, then watch the following video that shows you how to connect hexagons on the bias for maximum stretch:

The Lozenges Scarf as shown is made of 14 TexaTURTLE hexagons and results in a scarf that is about 80″ long, unstretched. You can adjust the length by using more or fewer hexagons.

Wear your scarf wrapped twice or three times for volume, open as “duster” accessory, double for a warming and decorative effect.

You can use different TURTLE looms and yarns, too … the first Lozenges Scarf was actually featured by Cocoa Bear in the Little Looms Holiday 2020 magazine. That scarf was woven on the TinyTURTLE fine-sett loom, using sock yarn.

Struggling with joining hexagons? This project is great “first time” joining exercise that is as easy as it can get. Watch stitch-by-stitch instructions here:

Go ahead and give the Lozenges Scarf a try! Easy to make, lots to learn, fun to enjoy.

TURTLE customer Lynne B. made this TexaTURTLE scarf earlier this year (see her comments below). While the joining direction for her hexagons is random, the scarf turned out to be lovely! And … don’t miss those humongous pompoms! Brava, Lynne!
(photos posted with permission)

Thank you, Lynne for sharing!

Lozenges Scarf, wrapped around a tree, showing stretched and un-stretched hexagons.

Designing with Hexagons

Late last summer, I received and email from Handwoven editor Susan Horton … if I would be interested to write an article about designing with hexagons. I checked twice to make sure that she really meant me, and she did.

Of course I’d love to! My enthusiasm resulted in a table of contents that exceeded the word count that was allotted for the planned article.

Long story short, over the next few weeks you may expect three articles that will cover a selection of topics around designing with hexagons. While those topics apply to all fabric hexagons, the examples are taken from experience with pin loom woven hexagons.

The first article covers basics concepts, including observations on arranging hexagons, some ideas on shapes that you can make when you put hexagons together, how you can integrate fabric direction into your designs, and lastly a list of sources for inspiration.

Also, the article includes a link to download free hexagon design templates, so that you can start drafting your own designs!

Read the article: “Designing with Hexagons: Basic Concepts”

I want to thank Long Thread Media for this opportunity, and it is my hope that many readers will find these articles useful and will benefit from them for years to come.