I first became enchanted with this motif after a particularly long and difficult meeting. I got home and wanted to do something that would let me forget what had transpired over the previous three hours, so I made an African Flower hexagon. As I have mentioned before, the experience was transcendent.

As a direct result of the too long meeting that drove me to this crochet motif, I ended up making this tote which I call my African Flower Power Bag:

This week, with the start of the 2010 World Cup (which is taking place in South Africa, birthplace of the African Flower Hexagon), it was hard for me not to notice (as I flipped past the various ESPN channels to get to my true crime shows) that soccer players wear uniforms that are an accurate reflection of the color palette I crochet with. The colors are intense and bright and this is further reflected in the colors used in the advertisements that line the stadium walls.

All of those bright colors made me want to participate in some way. Enter the African Flower Hexagon motif.

When I first worked on my African Flower Power Bag, I inadvertently made a five-sided motif.

I set it aside, not sure what, if anything I would do with it. However, with the 2010 World Cup now on the world stage, that mistake came back to me and now seemed fortuitous rather than annoying.

I could, I reasoned, make my very own (very large) celebratory soccer ball using the African Flower Hexagon as a guide for both the hexagons and pentagons that make up a soccer ball.

After a little digging around on the internet, I learned I would need to make 12 pentagons and 20 hexagons. This is how far I have gotten.

So far, this project has been a lot of fun, and as I have a lot of errands to run in the next two days, I expect it will be the perfect project with which to travel hither and yon.

Update: Since this post was originally written, I have completed a pattern so that you can make your own crochet soccer ball:

Related: Free crochet soccer ball pattern