A little bit of colour…

When it comes to making things from yarn, there is one thing I think all knitters and crocheters will agree on: sewing in the ends is a horrible, terrible, tedious job.

Oh, there’s nothing difficult about it, really. It’s just boring.

This is why I tend to work in single colours, or in lovely variegated and self-patterning yarns that don’t require more than 2 ends to be fastened down at the end of the project. It’s also why I tend to avoid projects made up of blocks, even the sew-together-as-you-go kind, as they inevitably require 72 blocks. Which means there will be 144 ends to weave in. Which usually results in much cursing.

And which totally does not explain the presence of this bit of colourfulness on my rocking chair at the moment:

I blame it on Lion Brand.

The this in question is the Fireworks Hexagon Picnic Blanket by Lion Brand, and it is an absolutely wonderful jumble of bright colours and fun hexagons. As an added bonus, it’s a join-as-you-go afghan, which means there’s no sewing together to do at the end.

You just make a hexagon…

Join it to its neighbours…

And voila!

Except for the six hundred ends to weave in at the end.

You think I’m kidding? Try this on for size…

The blanket is made up of 60 hexagons. Each hexagon is made up of 5 colours. Each colour has a tail of yarn at the start, and another at the end. Last time I checked, 60 x 5 x 2 = 600.

The pattern oh so sweetly suggests “To reduce the number of ends to weave in, work over the ends of the old color when working the next rnd.”

The problem is, with granny square blocks, even hexagonal ones, there isn’t a whole lot of space to work over the ends. At best, you’ve secured the tail with six double crochets worked in a chain 2 space. Fine for a decorative doily, I suppose, but absolutely insufficient for a blanket that is going to be used and loved and tossed in a wagon and thrown on the grown and rolled up in like a burrito. (What. Don’t you always roll up in your handmade blankets like a burrito?)

For blankets that are destined for a lot of active loving, you absolutely must have secure ends or you’ll wind up with a holey blanket. And sometimes even when you do have secure ends, you still wind up with a holey blanket, because, well, that’s what blankets do.

So while I’m dutifully crocheting over ends when I can, the further I get into this project, the less I can deny it: There are a lot of ends waiting to be woven in when I’m done.