The knit or crochet temperature blanket is a popular project for people to start at the beginning of the year. The idea is that you use different colors to track the temperature throughout the year. Your colors coordinate with the temperature. Then you knit or crochet a motif or row for each day, using the color that corresponds with the temperature. At the end of the year, you have a colorful blanket. However, it’s not too late in the year to start a temperature blanket. And it doesn’t have to last for a full year. Many people on social media have mentioned that they’re starting their blankets now. So let’s talk about how you might do that.
What is a Temperature Blanket?
If you still aren’t entirely sure what a temperature blanket is, then read this introduction. As aforementioned, you basically choose a stitch pattern – whether rows or motifs – for a blanket that you’ll create day by day. Then you assign colors to temperature ranges, and that’s how you decide which color to knit or crochet that particular day. Many people consider temperature blankets to be a crochet project. However you can knit or crochet a temperature blanket.
Choosing Yarn, Colors, and Stitches
You’ll need to decide in advance on these project basics. Here are some helpful posts:
- How to Choose Yarn and Colors for Temperature Blankets
- Choosing a Stitch Pattern for Temperature Blankets
- 33 Free Knit and Crochet Patterns for Temperature Blankets and Related Projects
Additional Planning for Your Knit or Crochet Temperature Blanket
In order to figure out how many colors of yarn you’ll need, though, you’ll have to do a little thinking ahead. You need to consider:
- How long you’re going to work on this project (the rest of the year, one full year from now, just for the summer?)
- How often you’re going to work on this project (daily, weekly?)
- The likely temperature range in your area for the duration of the project
- The range of temperatures you want for each color.
- Are you going to use the high temperature, the low temperature, or the day’s average?
How to Figure Out The Number of Colors and Motifs You Need
So, for example. Let’s say that you’re going to work on this project until the end of the year. You want to work on it weekly. (Therefore, you’ll take the average temperature for the week each week, rather than a specific daily temperature.) There are 26 weeks left in 2021. Therefore, you’re going to make 26 motifs for your blanket. (Choose your motif size accordingly.)
What will the temperature range be in your area during those 26 weeks? In Tucson, the high temperature might be well over 100 for the next few months. Then it might get as low as 40’s or 50’s by Christmas. As a result, your temperature range might be ten degrees. So let’s say that you would use a red yarn for weeks when the temperature is 100-110, an orange yarn when it’s 90-100, a yellow yarn for 80-90, etc.
In comparison, San Francisco is practically always between 65-85. Therefore, I might use a temperature range of just 2-3 degrees. I might even use a different color for every single temperature within that range if I want a colorful blanket. Notably, I might make different temperature range color choices for my knit or crochet temperature blanket if I were doing a daily motif rather than a weekly one.
Read More: What Location and Time Period To Use for Your Temperature Blanket
Benefits of Starting a Knit or Crochet Temperature Blanket Now
Knit or crochet temperature blankets offer some great benefits that you might not even have thought of:
- They provide a way to track the time. Sometimes it seems like time is slipping away from us, doesn’t us?
- The daily ritual of sitting down to crochet or knit a simple motif is relaxing, soothing, and healing.
- Just when you think you can’t bare the summer heat any longer, you’ll notice your blanket colors starting to change. You’ll feel a sense of relief.
- Every time you use the blanket in the future, you’ll remember whatever you were doing this summer (and maybe fall, too) when you crafted it.
- Motif-based projects are great summer craft projects. Join the motifs at the end when the summer heat is gone.
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