Okay– so I’ve been trying to explain this for weeks, and this time I’m going to try pictures.
I’m making a Granny Hexagon sweater.
This is magic.
See, if you make a granny square, it has 4 90 degree corners. It lays flat. But if you make a Granny Hexagon–and don’t compensate for the corners by using fewer stitches–you end up with 6 90 degree corners, for a total of 540 degrees, and it doesn’t lay flat.
In fact, it looks like a deformed sad little starfish thing that will never lie flat and will be laughed at by its friends.
So sad. Do we feel sorry for it yet?
And look how tiny it is!
Why, you’d have to go around and around and around a LOT to make that starfish thing amount to anything interesting.
​But what could it amount to?
IN fact, it makes a little half-a-tee. Do you see that? But it’s got some open seams. If you sew along the top edge there–not the whole thing, mind you–you will have an arm, and, well, half a body.
And that may not seem like a lot–I mean, look at it. It’s tiny. But imagine you made one of those and went around and around and around with some slightly thicker yarn… you would have a GINORMOUS granny hexagon.
And then when you folded THAT one in half–the right way, corner to corner at both ends–you would have a much larger half a T–or, half a kimono shaped sweater.
And then, if you had two of them, you could sew the arm seams at the top and one seam along the back, and you’d have a very square-shaped jacket.
Or, you could sew the one seam in the back and the one in the front and have a very basic jumper.
Or, you could sew the seam in the back and add some flaps on the front and some length and have a much more formidable jacket, and then add a hood, and, hey, a few rounds to tighten up the sleeves a little, and it would have a much different shape.
But the point is, here, that you take a sad little starfish shape and keep working on it, and it could become a sweater of generous proportions.
And that’s what I’ve been working on of late.
