The "Hexagonal Geopuffs" will arrive as a project on Yahoo's LoomClass, Monday, May 14-26, 2012. These little motifs, designed for the 12-peg large gauge flower loom, were inspired by the beekeeper's quilt hexipuffs, a needle knitting design by Stephanie Dosen of tiny owl knits. Both the Geopuffs and the Hexipuffs are reminiscent of Victorian Era biscuit or puff quits, which were made with individually stuffed square "puffs" and sewn together to make a quilt. Also, they can be left unstuffed and used a coaster.
Other than being six-sided puff motifs, the geopuffs and hexipuffs are a bit different. The original needle knitted hexipuffs are made from the bottom to the top on the knitting needles using sock yarn and require seaming. The loom knitted geopuffs are made from center-to-center using regular worsted weight yarn and require no seaming. Also, since the latter design is formed from the center outward, it tends to be more consistently symmetrical, and is a good alternative design for those of us who are not needle knitters.
The term "geopuff" comes from the basic geometric shape. The hexagonal geopuff is the first in a series of geometric puff motifs that I hope to develop. These will include squares, rectangles, triangles and trapezoids.
Currently, the pattern will only be offered in outline format through LoomClass to accompany the explanations of the techniques which will be posted via the LoomClass message board. The complete tutorial pattern, which will include all the geometric puffs, will be available at a later date.
