Warm and Fluffy; Beekeepers quilt

Resistance was futile, I’m now knitting a Beekepers quilt.

I’ve been trying to fight off working on ‘the quilt’ for several months. I even mentioned that quilt a few months ago. Here’s a quote from that post…

But back to this lovely knitted quilt. It’s made by knitting hundreds of honeycomb shapes aka hexipuffs. I’m planning on making at least a queen size quilt… think about that, I’ll be turning yarn into honeycombs, which will then be joined to create a queen size quilt. That will take some time.  This is an item that will be passed onto my daughter. The beauty of it is; she’ll be able to watch some of the process. I plan to start on knitting this quilt this Fall.

To take my mind off that quilt, I’ve done a few more rows of my lacy fern afghan, and while it’s coming along quite nicely, I really wanted to make something that would be thicker and warmer. More like a quilt you know? Well, I’m now knitting a Beekeepers quilt (I’ve also heard it called the hexipuff quilt) and before long I’d knitted 1.5 hexagons.

My first hexipuffs, ready to be stuffed with fiberfill and bound…

I wanted to finish the second hexipuff, but it was late and I was extremely tired. So the work in progress puff was tucked into my project bag to be completed sometime today. I’m really enjoying these cute little puffs, so it’s safe to say that I’m officially working on my knitted quilt.

I don’t think I’ll be knitting the lacy fern afghan for a while, the time spent on that will be focused on my knitted quilt.

As usual I’m not following the pattern exactly

  1. I’m using worsted weight yarn instead of the sock or 4 ply yarn
  2. I’m casting on more stitches
  3. How I attach the hexipuffs will be different

To be honest, the pattern is quite easy to figure on your own, in fact I made my own knitted hexagons, squares, circles, and other shapes years before I purchased this pattern. But, I purchased the pattern, since I like supporting other designers. Since most animal fibers make me itch,the yarn used is 100% cotton.

How many puffs needed for my quilt?

Judging by the hexagon calculator, I’ll need at least 187 348 hexipuffs and 19 half hexipuffs to turn all the little puffs into a quilt, so this project will keep me busy for some time.

I’ve seen a few people comment on why people don’t join the hexagons as they go, and I can’t help but think that perhaps some of them are like myself…. I’ll be using a lot of colors and won’t know how they’ll look together until I’ve finished all the hexagons, so for me (and I imagine others) it makes sense to save the sewing together of all those hexagons (to form a quilt) until the end.

I’m feeling sad that I’ve sworn off my DPNs for a while, but I’m consoling myself by thinking that I’ll have plenty of hexipuffs to make when I lift the DPN restriction. However knitting in the round with my interchangeable circular needles is not bad, and making these tiny hexipuffs gives me the chance to use magic loop every single day.

My daughter loves the hexagons, and so I imagine I’ll be taking a detour to make a miniature beekeepers quilt for her Monster High dolls.

If you want to make your own Beekepers quilt, you can purchase your own pattern at Tiny Owl Knits website for $5.50, but if you’re a Ravelrer why not purchase and download it through Ravelry? In doing so,  you can upload the Beekeepers quilt pattern to your queue.