Granny Hexagons: a riot of colours!

The above came about because of 2 things: the coral reef project which made me buy colours I do not usually use - all from Thame market : pure cotton at £1.50 a ball- DK , and the May /June issue of CROCHET TODAY! which is now regularly stocked in my local WHSMITHS...( For USA readers this is a large newsagent type store)

I cam back from my fabulous 2 weeks in Turkey to find all the remnents of the reef lying about in my kitchen and it being too late to make any more pieces for the reef I decided on a shopping bag as we are going very GREEN in our household and all plastic shopping bags have been BANNED.
I have never done granny hexagons but the magazine had a great diagram so off I went playing with the colours: I had 2 browns, 2 reds and a yellow.
On holiday I learned to crochet motifs together in the final round of the next motif so I decided to do hexagons which tesselate nicely and this would cut down on the sewing or crocheting together- ''later'' - which in my experience often ''never'' happens.....!!!!

The magazine had them in 2 rows and only 2 colours but I was using a thinner yarn and a 3.5mm hook so I added a third row per motif by improvising and am pretty pleases with the result.

I have a regular side- repeating motifs and colours and an irregular side - more colours less repetition- see below!

I have used Wendy Supreme DK cotton, Sirdar CALYPSO DK cotton, Patons 4 ply cotton used double, Rowan handknit cotton- a freebie and a bit thick for this so used sparingly- Narvik DK COTTON ( lovely sheen but splits horribly)Young Touch- and some Patons DK pure cotton.

There are 4 rows of 9 hexagons each, connected in the round as a tube with pentagons as a border top and bottom : 18 of these in total.
It's not finished yet, it will be lined in red with 2 striped shoulder straps and a top striped border with a drawstring cord.
I'm planning to line the straps this time to prevent the stretching that happened with my ''library bag''- see earlier post.

REGULAR SIDE WITH BASE.

IRREGULAR SIDE WITH A FEW PENTAGONS STILL TO DO!

FINALLY : all those ends to be sewn in! I did crochet in the beginnings of most ends but like to sew the rest in securely later- 6 ends per motif times 54 motifs- uugggghhhhh....

Ps so far it weighs: 340 grammes ( before it's finished and EMPTY!!!This will be weight lifting when I go SHOPPING!)

and measures: 45 cm high and 42 cm across: that is an opening of the tube of 84cm.

IT'S ALSO VERY STRETCHY AND FITS me as a strapless vest top...! Shame it's colours I just cannot wear!( ie it's stretching to fit 38"!!!)