Temperature Blanket 2018 – January Update

I don’t know if it’s just the circles I’m moving in but there seem to be a lot of people making Temperature Blankets this year.  I am, of course, no exception!

I am so excited by this project.  I have long been enthusiastic about the weather, loving to watch the sky, the clouds and the changing seasons and this blanket is the perfect way to use this obsession creatively.

If you are unfamiliar with the concept let me give you a quick overview.  The maker creates a colour key with different colours representing different temperatures and then uses this to create something lovely.

I am in a Facebook group with over 1000 members some of whom are making scarves, there are a couple of snakes and lots and lots of blankets!  People are knitting, crocheting and using looms and I love watching their creativity.  Some are using bright colours, some pastels, some variegated yarn and some beautiful muted shades.  There are people adding in special rows for snow or celebration days, some are working the high temperature, some the low, some both and some the average.  There are blankets for this year’s weather and also many using historical data to celebrate the first year of a loved ones life, the first year of a marriage or another meaningful year from the past.  In short there are no hard and fast rules!

I have chosen to make my blanket using the midday temperature, as defined by the Met Office app on my phone, at my home location.  I have an alarm set for 12.01pm each day and at this point I check the app and either record the temperature in my bullet journal or screenshot it to record when its more convenient.  So that equates to just one row per day for me for all of 2018.

Do you want to see my colour choices?

I’m sure it will come as no surprise to regular visitors here to see that I am using a rainbow of colours, nor that I am using Stylecraft Special DK, my blanket yarn of choice for some years now.  As well as loving rainbow colours I also find myself drawn to the idea that cold is blue and hot is red with my colours echoing those on the TV weather maps.

I am using the temperatures in celsius (which has caused some confusion talking to American crafters) and fairly narrow bands to ensure lots of colour changes and variations as my blanket grows.  I think its pretty unlikely that I will use the colours at either end of my spectrum but you never know and I feel happy to be prepared for extreme weather.

I decided to crochet my blanket and plan for it to live on the back of the sofa when it is complete.  Using the sofa as a size guide I began with a chain of 304 stitches which has made my blanket around 150cm wide.  From my browsing around Pinterest and Ravelry before starting I found many people using tall stitches were surprised by just how long their blankets were ending up and so I chose the shortest stitch I could think of, linen stitch also sometimes known as moss stitch.  And it turned out to be a great decision.  By measuring my progress after a couple of weeks and then doing a couple of quick sums I have calculated that my finished blanket will be around 150cm square before I add a border, perfect for sofa snuggles!

So here are the first 31 days of the year.

January is blue!  I have loved watching the patterns emerge.  The odd warmer days in the first half of the month showing up as spots of paler blue.  The single row of purple marking the day that was still freezing at midday and then the period of much milder weather, so mild in fact that there were a couple of days of teal.

The eagle eyed among you may also have spotted the little strand of metallic silver thread at the far right of the photograph.  I didn’t really want to mark the month ends in this blanket, preferring to let the colours flow into each other but thought this teeny bit of sparkle might help when looking over the full year to see where the months end and begin.

I love the way the story is emerging and I’m really pleased with the overall look of the stitch as well.  I am so excited to see how the rest of the year unfolds.