James Webb Space Telescope Baby Blankie
Finished
March 4, 2015
March 22, 2015

James Webb Space Telescope Baby Blankie

Project info
the beekeeper's quilt by tiny owl knits
Knitting
BlanketThrow
DA's baby
Needles & yarn
US 11 - 8.0 mm
924 yards = 6.75 skeins
Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Superwash Bulky
6 skeins = 822.0 yards (751.6 meters), 600 grams
Yellow
Knit Picks
Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Superwash Bulky
0.75 skeins = 102.8 yards (94.0 meters), 75 grams
Black
Knit Picks
Notes

The geek knitter in me emerges.
A friend expecting his first child works as an optics engineer on the JWST. After a visit to Goddard in February to see how this all goes down (and realizing, yikes that telescope is all hexis!), I thought he might appreciate a hexipuff blankie in the image of the primary telescope mirror.

Trying to use as much of the yarn as possible--to make the largest blanket with 8 yellow (1 black) hanks.
All the hanks are just over 100g. To make 18 hexis I can make 2.25 hexi’s per hank--or about 44g per hexi.

CO 24 stitches. This creates approx 24g hexi.
Will try CO 36 stitches and see how that works--this used the yarn up too quickly.
Tried CO 28. At the halfway point I had used 19 grams.

CO 28. Ends with 34g hexi.
Extra plain round after all sets of increase rounds.

Hexi Height 7.5 inch
Hexi Width point to point 8.5 inches
Hexi Width bottom/top edge 4.5 inches

Max blanket width 33 inches
Max blanket height 36 inches
I could have made the hexis a little bigger, but this seems like a reasonable dimension for a baby blanket.

I am getting 3 hexis per hank.

As others have noted, this yarn is not really a bulky weight--I would call it heavy worsted, or aran. Using size 11 needles gives a very loose fabric, but for me this is OK, since this pattern is a double layer, and knitting this loose makes it very soft.
This yarn is prone to snagging though, with such a loose spin and knit--and I will let the parents know to wash in a sweater bag to avoid snagging on other items in the wash.

Last of the hexis was completed 3/17. Now to put them together. I need to decide if I will just connect at the points, or do a more substantial join (crochet along all edges?).

Since the hexis were so large, corner join alone was not enough to hold it together nicely. So I use the black to do a crochet join along the edges.

Love the way this turned out!!!
I’m thinking maybe more giant hexi blankets are in my future.

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Finished
March 4, 2015
March 22, 2015
 
About this pattern
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About this yarn
by Knit Picks
Bulky
100% Wool
137 yards / 100 grams

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  • Project created: March 4, 2015
  • Finished: March 22, 2015
  • Updated: March 23, 2015
  • Progress updates: 6 updates