When I first started this blanket I was young and foolish and imagined that 730 rows of crochet would fit perfectly on a bed. Actually I didn't imagine any of that - I didn't really think about how big the finished project would be until I'd finished the first month and measured the length and multiplied by 12 and realized that 2017 was going to be a big year of yarn. At first I thought I could just do two blankets of 6 months each, but even that would be a bit big for a normal-sized bed, so I divided the year into three sections, and here is the first one. As of this post, I'm in the end of July in the next portion, so almost 3/4 finished. Hopefully I'll finish the whole thing before my kids graduate high school.
Some of the temperature blankets (or scarves) I've seen on places like Pinterest have brighter colors, but I prefer blues, greens - the cooler tones. The colors are soothing, like a walk along one of our Rhode Island beaches after the tourists have gone home.
April brought us a few stripes of warmth, as you can see above. The darker greens, those couple rows of yellow, those show first hints of Spring.
My colors:
I used a different color for every 5 degrees Fahrenheit, and this scrap of paper was my guide throughout the first four month segment. And hey - if you scroll back a few posts you can see my initial post about this project. Yay!
Here are my tools for the next four month afghan, beginning with the color range and samples of all the yarns wrapped around some clothespins. A couple of shades of green are pretty close and I still have to double check which is which if the lighting is bad.
Below, my progress so far, sitting in a rumpled heap on top of my box of in-use yarns. In the top left of the picture is another project, a sampler afghan done in bright, warmer colors. I started working on it during Julia's softball games this past season. I'd do a square in one stitch...then one in a different stitch. I'll pick it up again as her off-season indoor games begin next month.
These are my backup yarns for the current temperature project, so I don't run out mid-row.
And this is my temperature calendar. Each date has two temperatures, and above each number is a letter that stands for the corresponding yarn. As I finish each row I put a check mark above the letter. I filled in all those temperatures with help from the Weather Underground app. You can do a weather history search based on your zip code and look up all sorts of things.
And here is Otis, looking deceptively quiet and peaceful.
He's been sleeping on this blanket (which is on top of yet another project so that the cats don't get cat hairs all over it or poke themselves with pins) for the past several hours, but after I was done taking these pictures, he wandered over to where I was typing (and watching the Red Sox parade through Boston on tv) to try to distract me from my task. He likes to walk on the keyboard, and when I don't let him do that he heads for my uncovered water glass in order to make me lunge across the couch.
He has the loudest purr. :)
Gotta go now. Happy Halloween!
You are amazing! I like the colors of this project :)
Thanks for sharing.
Cheers,
Jessica
Posted by: Jessica | January 29, 2019 at 09:03 AM