An alternative Temperature Blanket

It seems to be traditional to start a Temperature Blanket in January, at the start of a new year and whilst I can see the obvious attractions of a new year, new blanket approach, when you think about it a summer start has a lot of advantages.

Starting the knitting during the warmer months (in the Northern hemisphere) has the advantage that the blanket is smaller and cooler to work on, saving the longer heavier rows for the colder months, when a pile of wool on your lap is probably a lot more welcome.

I vividly remember that my knitting slowed to a crawl during the 2020 summer as I just couldn’t face working on a large blanket project. Given that I was knitting a corner to corner blanket (with the longest rows during the summer months) this meant I had to do a lot of catch up knitting in autumn to stand a hope of finishing on time.

Starting in the summer would have completely bypassed this and would, with hindsight probably made for a much more relaxing knit.

Depending on your colour preferences and choices you might also want the warmer colours at each end of the blanket, with a cooler ones in the centre. I love my temperature blanket to death and use it a lot, but the few warm colour stripes right across the middle do annoy me slightly. Given the choice again I think I would prefer them confined to the edges.

I’ve blogged about my Temperature Blanket before, but I’ve included the link here in case you want to read up more on it, and maybe induldge in a little blanket planning of your own this summer.

And if you do decide to do a summer start, please do let me know. I’d love to cheer you on from the sidelines.

Going with gut instinct

As I’m sure you’ll know about me I’m a girl who loves to plan. Give me a notebook and a pen (or even the back of an envelope) and my first response to pretty much anything is to write a list.

But if this year is teaching me anything, it is that the best laid plans don’t always work out. My lovely 2020 weekly planner sits taunting me from the bookcase, with a lovingly laid out list of goals, deadlines and ‘Things to Do’ - not much of which has actually been done, for all of the current ongoing reasons.

At the beginning of the year I sat down and planned out my Temperature Blanket in detail - the colours I would use and the temperature ranges I would work to. The blog post is here if you want to read it.

And so far it’s been going really well. But this weekend I hit a stumbling block. Hitting a new temperature high of 23c I excitedly reached into my stash bag for the new colour and realised that the allocated yarn was a drab olive green which didn’t exactly thrill the senses.

But, never one to listen to my inner voice I ploughed on regardless, dutifully adding in most of the days stitches (about 2000 - if we are counting). It was at that point that I realised that I really (really) didn’t like the colour. It was way too dark and too jarring in the overall colour scheme. With hindsight it would have worked far better down with the cooler colours but hey ho. We live and learn.

So I spent a fun evening ripping it out and then decided to move the warmer colours up a bit. So the lovely sunny yellow (Butterscotch) is now covering ranges 22-24c . The next range up will be the warmer Tumeric (orange/brown) and so now I just need to look for another shade to fill in the top temperature range.

And I’m so much happier with the yellow - it sings perfectly and does exactly what these warmer sunny days should be doing. Lifting our spirits and giving us a good old dose of colour therapy.

And lesson learned (probably) - trust the gut instinct - it knows what it’s talking about.

Beginning with the end in mind

Or in my case, I think it should read ‘Beginning with the ends in mind’

Because of course I didn’t. I ploughed headlong into my Temperature Blanket with nothing more than a vague hope/expectation that I would deal with the ends as I went along. Predictably I didn’t - well, I did for a few days but then I got bored.

So now I have 60 days worth of blanket - and very pleased I am with it too. With the endy, tangly mess at one side - not so much.

I had thoughts of maybe just braiding it and having an attractive ‘french plait’ feature down one side but after doing a little reading - and I weirdly dreamt about it last night too - I think I’m going to go for the option of working an i-cord tube and rolling up the ends inside the tube as I go.

I’m planning to have a little practice later on today to see how I go - I’ll report back just as soon as my cold medicine kicks in.

Temperature blanket: January update

It’s a few days late but I promised you an monthly update on the corner to corner knitted temperature blanket and so, here we are.

I have to say that I’m really enjoying it so far, but of course it is early days with nice short rows and it is manageable as a lunchtime/portable knitting project. I quite enjoy my lunchtime routine of checking the noon temperature and then adding my 4 rows of garter stitch for the day.

I’ll probably feel differently in June when I’m trapped under a huge woolly monster.

With the issue of portability in mind I did give some thought to creating 4 corner to corner squares - ie increasing to day 45, then decreasing to create 1 square at the end of March. The idea of more portable squares is an attractive one I have to admit. But for me, some of the aesthetic joy of these blankets is the continuation of gradient as you move through the year. Breaking it up into squares can be really stunning, visually but it’s not really the look I’m aiming for.

So, I think I’ll have to resign myself to some stay-at-home knitting for those summer months. Perhaps with a cunningly placed lap tray to keep the thing off my knees.

How to knit a Temperature Blanket - and why...

Far too much dithering over colour choices

January 2021 Update: You can find the update and the completed blanket at this post

And you can find my Temperature Blanket e-book here:

I swore that I would never do a Temperature Blanket and yet every January I would be smitten with gorgeous finished objects, fantastic visual representations of the past year in woolly form and be tempted. This year finally got the better of me and I decided to embark on my own.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about a Temperature Blanket is a year long project (usually) where you work a row or two every day.

You decide on a temperature scale and have a different colour to represent each category on that scale. For example I decided to work on a scale of 0-30 degrees Celcius, with the scale in 3 degree increments.

The important thing to note from the outset is that this is your project and you set the rules. There is no standard pattern, although others have published their projects for inspiration and education ultimately your choice of yarn/needles, your selection of colours and scale will make this project completely and utterly unique. That’s the beauty of it.

However, like all epic projects it does require some planning at the beginning. It won’t have escaped your notice that 365 days is 365 rows (or 730 for garter stitch). That is a lot of rows and in chunky yarn (or crochet) you could well end up with something the length of a hallway runner rather than a usable blanket if you aren’t careful.

Scale

Another consideration is the selection of your scale. This is obviously highly dependent on where you live. Based here in the UK we are blessed with a pretty moderate climate without significant extremes. My scale therefore can be in relatively small increments. Doing it in increments of 6 for example might result in too few colour changes to look visually interesting. Many days in summer here can be in the range 18-24 for example.

Colours and yarn

Pick a yarn you love, obviously and that fits your budget. It’s also worth bearing in mind that you might need to buy more if your estimates are off, so pick something that’s readily available and easy to obtain. It sounds obvious but you don’t have to go for the traditional blue = cold red = hot colour scheme. I’ve seen some brilliant ones where the colours are neutrals (greys or shades of natural yarn) for example that look absolutely stunning.

Time

How you pick and record the temperature is also entirely up to you. I decided to go for noon at our favourite place in the Lake District - I check it daily on a weather app. You could also access a historical weather record site for your area and do a retrospective blanket - based on a significant year for you, for example.

My blanket

After seeing some lovely knitted and crochet corner to corner blankets I opted for this style - mainly because the thought of a super long cast on did not fill me with enthusiasm. 

Yarn: West Yorkshire Spinners 4ply Signature Sock Yarn

Needles: 3mm

I cast on 3sts and I’m increasing 2 sts every right side row, until the midpoint when I’ll start the decreases. I’m knitting 4 rows (2 garter ridges) for every day.

If you are interested I’ve linked to my Ravelry project page and I’ll be doing updates once a month or so - as I’d hate to spam you with the thing. But I’m hoping that a monthly update will keep me accountable and stop the blanket from languishing in a corner.

Wish me luck. In the immortal words of Antarctic explorer Lawrence Oates “I may be some time”