My Beekeeper's Quilt

My blog may be about my escapades in the kitchen, but cooking isn't my only skill, I am also a keen knitter.  For the past few months I've been working on a project called The Beekeeper's Quilt - so called because it is made up of lots (384 to be precise) of individual 'honeycombs' or 'hexipuffs'.  These are knitted individually and stuffed meaning you end up with a wonderfully puffy quilt at the end.

My Beekeeper's Quilt

This isn't the first blanket I've knitted since I've been at uni, I also knitted one during my second year and I have to say it was one of the things which kept me sane during my exams.  There's something about knitting which helps me to relax and switch off from work for a little while - a great way to break up revision.  I remember hearing about a woman who said that when she was under pressure she knitted to help her calm down and that as a result she had a jumper for every year she spent at university.  Well it seems that I have done a similar thing, except with blankets!

I bought this pattern a couple of years ago but what with spending a year in Germany I didn't get round to starting it until last September.  The great thing about this project is that you can use up yarn that you've got lying around.  It's recommended that you use sock yarn but double knit would also work (so long as you figure out your tension correctly) and stick with broadly the same type of yarn.

This project has been perfect as I have been able to pick it up and put it down as and when I have the time (which has varied given that I am in my final year at university).  Since you knit each hexipuff individually you don't have to worry about losing your place in a pattern, it's super-easy to work out where you left off.

So 7 months and 384 hexipuffs later, I have finally finished the project.  One of the clever things about this quilt is that rather than laboriously sewing every hexipuff together along the seams you simply tie them together at the corners, meaning the blanket is not only relatively quick to assemble but also quite flexible too.  However, I have realised that my knots come apart quite easily so any suggestions for better knots are much appreciated!

Starting to assemble my blanket

To try and make sure the distribution of colours looked random I divided the blanket into six sections and tried to put a roughly equal number of each colour hexipuff into each section.  I then arranged my hexipuffs working my way from the centre of the blanket out to the edges.  This took a while as my hexipuffs weren't all of exactly even size - knitting nearly 400 to exactly the same tension is challenging - so I had to keep swapping them around to make them fit together, but I finally managed and I'm glad I took the time to arrange them properly.

Arranging my hexipuffs

As you can see I didn't really go with a colour scheme, but that's the beauty of this blanket, you really can use any wool.  I'm glad it's finished and I know that whenever I use it I will think of this year, all my wonderful friends and all the memories that I made.