Via the various Facebook Crochet/Knitting Groups I belong too I heard about the Temperature Blanket yarn along.
The idea was to start on January 1st 2016 and to crochet or knit a blanket. (I prefer to crochet). Each day add one row. The colour of the row is to correspond with the high temperature in my location - Victor Harbor South Australia for that day. At the end of the year I would have a blanket with 366 different rows!!
People all over the world are committed to this project. Initially I dismissed the idea. Then a friend who knows I have a passion for crocheting shared about the temperature blanket on my Facebook wall! At the time I said I thought it was an interesting concept but I wondered how much variation I would get with the weather the way it was so far in January. Also I was concerned about deciding what pattern or stitch too do so the blanket would not end up too long and thinking that by the time 10 months had gone by it could be huge and unwieldy Any stitches using DC (Aust) or SC (US).in the overall pattern would be suitable linen stitch or moss stitch.
I experimented with small samples....tried linen stitch but the one different coloured with my chosen colours for January 2016 row looked 'lost' in the middle. Then I considered using treble stitch patterns such as the Basket Stitch, Shell Stitch,Waffle Stitch or Granny Stitch.
Anyway I decided on my colours ordered the yarn & waited. I ordered Stylecraft Special DK from here http://www.woolwarehouse.co.uk/
Here is my colour scheme....temperatures are in Celsius.
I started keeping records of the daily temperatures on a calendar.
I joined a Facebook group dedicated to the project. https://www.facebook.com/groups/877544645667442/?fref=nf
I found myself drooling over some of the lovely designs. I still had some reservations on how big this project was going to be?
My yarn order arrived this week so time to make some plans and decisions.
What I have decided to do is a 4 Seasons Blanket.I am making 4 smaller blankets for each season then I will join them together at the end of the year.
I used this web site to find out the temperatures for the month of December 2015.. You can find out the temperatures from years gone by here:-
http://www.accuweather.com/en/au/victor-harbor/2267147/weather-forecast/2267147
I learnt from You Tube how to crochet using Intarsia to crochet in letters. My plan is for each mini blanket to start with a section with the appropriate Season letters crocheted in, I created a graph using Excel and learnt a bit more about the benefits of using Excel. So here is my graph:-
Australia crochet terms used.
Pattern so far:-
Using Cloud Blue
Chain 141
Row 1 - DC to the end turn
Row 2 - Treble to the end
Row 3 -5 work in the letters in Matador & Jaffa.
Row 6 - Treble to end
Row 7 - DC to the end.
Start pattern according to the appropriate colour for the day.
The pattern I am using is called Diamond Stitch tutorial found here:-
http://happyinred.blogspot.nl/2013/11/diamond-stitch-blanket-crochet-pattern-tutorial.html
So this is my project so far:-
My plan is too maybe appliqued a 'sun' on the summer one, a leaf for Autumn, a flower for spring and a raindrop for winter next to the word.
I estimate the length of my blanket to be six feet (three for each mini one) which should be good on a Queen size bed.
I will keep this updated as I progress.
Finished Summer Blanket. I did a border in the lighter colour yellow (Citron) which was the dominant colour used. Did one row all the way around in 1dc (Aus) 2chain evenly then around in the opposite direction doing 2 dc in each of the 2 chain spaces with an extra one in the corners.
