I've been crocheting at least one Paperweight Granny/African flower a day since my last post about them. The photo above shows the lot — 24 completely done, plus 4 more that just need the ends darned in. If I've calculated my measurements right, I'll need at least 87 before I can think about joining.
The rule I've made is crochet 4, darn them all in, crochet some more. There are 6 ends per motif, which may seem like a lot, but the truth is the structure of the motif makes them very quick and easy to finish off. The one situation I do not want to wind up in is having me crying about "all those ends" when a little prudence can save a lot of angst.
Speaking of avoiding angst, I lucked out on Pinterest last night and found a fabulous tutorial about how to join hexagonal motifs in one continuous run — for the entire piece, not just a row or cluster at a time! I tried it last night on a few finished motifs, just to see if I understood the instructions, and it's remarkably easy once you get going. I unravelled the results because I'm not ready to join yet, but I am definitely using this for the assembly.
The only caveat is that the hexagons have to have the same colour on the last round to use the continuous join. Fair enough, given how it works. If you aren't using the same colour, there are other join-as-you-go options to choose from anyhow.