01
What this one is
You know the kind of evening this is for: the one where the light goes early and you want something in your lap that holds color like a stained-glass window. This hexagon blanket is built for whoever loves a project with a graph to follow and a palette that runs from Currant to Clarity. It suits a crocheter who has made a granny square before and is ready to let the colors do the talking.
Your hands spend most of this piece doing two things: building dc rounds into a tidy hexagon, then zig-zagging those hexagons together with slip stitches once the layout is set. Each motif is only four rounds, so the real rhythm comes from repeating it across however many hexagons your graph calls for, then adding the three-round border. Expect this to be a multi-session project — a few hours per sitting adds up fast with fifteen colors in rotation.
02
Try it another way
The easiest way to change the mood of this blanket is to shift the color graph: lean heavily on Currant, Cranberry, and Masala for a warm, saturated version, or build most hexagons in White, Gosling, and Ciel with just a few hits of Spruce or Navy for a cooler, quieter palette. Since round 4 is where the new joining color gets introduced, you can also use that round alone as an accent — keep rounds 1 through 3 in neutral shades like Coal or Winter Night and let round 4 carry all fifteen colors across different hexagons. For size, simply make more or fewer hexagons before you start the zig-zag join; the join-from-the-corner method scales to any number of motifs without changing the stitch pattern itself. If you want a lighter throw rather than a full blanket, stop after fewer hexagons and work only Border Round 1 and 2, skipping the dc5tog bobble round for a flatter edge. You can also swap which yarns go where in the materials list — using the same fifteen colors but reassigning them motif by motif gives you a genuinely different-looking blanket from the same instructions.
There's real satisfaction in watching a hexagon snap into its six-sided shape on round 4, when the plain circle you built in rounds 1 through 3 suddenly grows ch-2 corners and starts looking like something out of a stained-glass window. Working fifteen shades of Wool of the Andes Bulky means no two hexagons have to repeat, and laying them out on a color graph before joining turns the whole project into a design exercise, not just a stitch count. The join itself — a zig-zag slip stitch across the top right-hand corner outward — is satisfying in a different way: fast, almost meditative, and it locks every motif into place without a separate seaming session. By the time you reach the dc5tog bobble border, the blanket already looks finished; the bobbles are just the flourish.
