African Flower Afghan

Since I finished off the One-Color Afghan so quickly, I was looking around for something new to crochet.  I was going to avoid a project with many color changes, since I hate sewing in the ends, but I discovered that I have a big 3"-long needle that slides right through the work easily, so I no longer hate sewing in the ends.  Looking around on the internet, I ran across the African Flower hexagon pattern and decided to try it out.
http://www.craftpassion.com/2011/04/crochet-african-flower-paperweight-granny.html

I always start these afghan projects to use up my extra yarn, but then I get caught up in the fun of the color combinations and end up buying more yarn, so as a stash reduction method it is a big fail.  This afghan will be pinks and reds and a gray blue, and there will be some stash reduction since the cream color and some of the pinks were already in the stash.  There will be a net gain in the stash though because I ran out and bought more pinks, and thinking of the next afghan, some greens and turquoises.This flower hexagon is really easy and fun to crochet, and seems to go much faster than crocheting a granny square.

Since I also do not enjoy sewing the blocks together, this time I am crocheting them together which is absolutely fabulous.

Here's the basic flower before the border is crocheted onto the edges.  You make a bunch of the flowers, decide where you want them placed, then crochet the border  and attach them together at the same time. With the border, the blocks measure about 4 1/2" across.

This was one of my first blocks.  Do you notice the mistake?  I ended up having to cut off the white border and re-crochet the petal row, because as a 'hexagon' with 7 sides, it didn't fit.

These are much more fun to crochet than granny squares, and it is wonderful to try different color combinations.  I'm not sure how big this will end up being, but I am already thinking about the next one.