March 26, 2021

I changed all the colors, the key shows my colors (new) replacing the original colors (old).

March 28, 2021

Decided to use the Persian Dreams Expansion Pack to make all the hexagons different.

July 5, 2021

Decided that the background color was just not working and ordered white to replace it. Project is in timeout until it arrives.

July 10, 2021

New background yarn arrived yesterday, ripped out the hexagon and half that were done to start over.

Assembly and Border Notes

I did not do the border the way the pattern said. I just did the hexagons, leaving them with live stitches all the way around. I then grafted hexagons together into strips and then grafted the strips into the whole blanket. I did have to sew up some open spots when the strips were grafted together (think gaps in a sock gusset) after assembling.

Then I put all the stitches on the outside edge on a circular needle (three 37 inch ChiaoGoo cables connected together).

I decided to do the border in garter stitch because I hate seed stitch.

I did a set up row, knitting across and putting in markers at the center of the points (purple, see diagram pic, and the valleys (green, see diagram pic) and picked 2 stitches at each valley, one in each hexagon to close the gap. I then repeated the following rows:
Row 1: purl
Row 2: (Depends on where you joined the yarn to start) Knit the row watching for markers. When you reach 1 stitch before a point marker, KFB, move marker, KFB. When you reach 2 stitches before a valley marker, SSK, move marker, K2tog.

Each repeat of these 2 rows will add 12 stitches to your border count. The reason I did it this way is that the border needs to increase a bit to lay flat.

I had a significant amount of yarn left over, so I am doing 20 rows of white counting the set up row, so that I end having just completed a purl row, and then I will change colors (best to start with a knit row when changing color in garter) and do 2 rows of each color, so there is 1 color ridge) starting from the lightest color out to the darkest color.