No rest for the process knitter

As promised, a hexipuff photo:

hexipuff #1

Here are the vital stats: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock mediumweight, using 3.25 mm needles. Started with Judy’s Magic Cast-on, increased via paired M1L and M1R, decreased via paired k2tog and ssk, and finished with grafting.

You can see it’s a little short and squat, no doubt a row gauge issue. And it has very smooth, rounded edges, thanks to the shaping techniques I chose.

As you’d expect from a process knitter like me, knitting this one little sample did not quench my hexipuff curiosity. Rather, it’s only serving to fuel the fire. Now I want to try other shaping techniques. What combination of cast-on, increase, decrease, and bind-off would give me a hexipuff with sharp, clearly delineated edges? Can I get a matching edge around all sides? What’s the best way to get a true hexagon?

I suspect the answer to all these questions is to increase from the center out to the edges, purl one round, then decrease back to the center on the other side. (I know I’ve seen it done on Ravelry, but I can’t find proof at the moment.) But would this make stuffing the hexipuff too fiddly for words? Time will tell.

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