Hexipuffs with Anna

Words from Narrow Bridge member Anna Marshall

“My mom was an avid and very accomplished crocheter. When she worked on her larger projects like afghans and blankets, she generated a lot of what we called “floof” — the little snips of yarn that were left over when she trimmed her ends. Now that I knit, I have the same problem: bags and bowls and boxes filled with yarn trimmings. Mom used to throw them away after a bunch of them piled up, but I find it difficult to do that. Like many knitters, I often think about the environmental impact that this hobby of mine has, so I’m not crazy about contributing to landfills. But I’m also cheap, and it seems like a waste of money to just throw all that “floof” away.

As you might guess, it used a lot of yarn, but I also had several partial skeins left over. I used those partial skeins to make “hexipuffs.” I have a project that helps me out of this dilemma — a Hexipuff Blanket using scraps from my Temperature Blanket and a massive amount of “floof” I’ve accumulated. And at the end, I’ll have a fun, decorative blanket that turns the “waste” of my knitting projects into a wonderful reminder of some of my fun projects.

I start with my Temperature Blanket — which I’ll write about in another post. Very quickly here, each square represents the range of temperatures in a day in Chicago in 2023.

The (paid) pattern for these little shapes is called The Beekeeper’s Quilt, but is widespread across the internet – here’s a blog post that has “the recipe” for the hexipuffs. And as the blog post comments, there are a lot of variations in how knitters make them — some use DPNs, some magic loop (which is what I do). Some do their increases and decreases one stitch in from the edge; I’ve been experimenting with doing the increases and decreases on the edge of the work. In short, you do you!

You bind off the last row, which leaves a little opening in the hexagon — which you can then stuff with floof and then sew up the end to seal it. (I use a 3 needle bind off; others use Kitchener stitch; mattress stitch is fine — again, you do you!) And you’re left with a Hexipuff.

After you’ve knitted a big bunch of these, then you put them together in a honeycomb shape. This is a tentative layout with the ones I had on hand during Knitting Circle at Narrow Bridge.

Then, you bind them together, and once more, different crafters have different ideas about how to connect them. The original pattern suggests tying them together at the corners — yet another possible use for scrap yarn. Other crafters choose to stitch them together for a tighter connection. I haven’t made a decision yet. . . . Come to Knitting Circle at Narrow Bridge and find out! In the meantime, if you have any “floof” from your own knitting or crochet projects, please bring it to Narrow Bridge – Amber’s collecting it for me and anyone else who wants to try this project?”