Category: Temperature Blanket

Temperature update

January has been an interesting month. Unlike last year it has been particularly gloomy for several days. The few that have been sunlit have been such a blessing. Today was such a day, although this evening is wet. Nights have been very dark. The moon isn’t rising until the early hours (this morning it rose after I was up for the day) so the sky is hardly lit. This has not been good for either choosing colours, or for photographs! All crochet has been done during the hours of darkness, so I’ve been waiting to take pictures, and finally here are a few…

This year I’m making the temperature blanket in a slightly different way. Last year’s was made in monthly blocks – and these were joined into the seasons. I used 4 linking colours, but this year I’m only using one – and there will be no seasonal breaks. One long strip of granny blocks is a little boring, so instead, here is a block of nine days (a photo collage)

The colours are as cool as the weather and edged with Parchment. I think it goes very well with the blues and lilacs.

I’m using the same colour to edge the blocks for the Spirit of January. You may remember that I’m comparing the days of last year with those of this – so each square has 4 rounds of colour. Here is a photo collage of nine days.

You can see that so far last year was far more colourful than this year, and in the above no days were the same. However….

that changed at the weekend. You can see that the days were identical as far as temperature was concerned.

How is your blanket coming along? Are you making a Temperature Blanket? They are fun – and worth the long effort of making a square a day.

Happy New Year

Yesterday was not the best day of the year, but we had no snow, a little wind and a touch of rain. The sun even managed a little shining at one point, but I was too slow with the camera to catch it! Today is similarly grey at the moment. But there is a brightness that indicates the sun may yet shine – and this time I will try to be ready with the camera. I photograph the above tree every day and have done for a number of years. It’s at the bottom of our garden – and I post a picture here, just as a reminder of the passing seasons.

January 1st was a little damp last year, it’s interesting to compare sometimes.

So, my blanket for December seemed the obvious choice once the main Temperature Blanket was finished. It’s now done with the exception of the last round of the border which will happen later today.

Six squares by five which gives us 30 days for December. However, there are 31! Never fear – the last day is represented in the border.

Silver and Denim represent 2016 and Turquoise and Cloud Blue are for yesterday. I’ll be embarking on a similar exercise later for January. There were colours used last January that don’t appear here, so this will be an interesting exercise.

I’ll be running the above alongside another temperature blanket, I’m ready to go. The first square will have Storm Blue at the centre, it was 6 deg C when I got up this morning – I don’t think it will change much, maybe rise all the way to 7? A few people are joining me on Instagram, and elsewhere too. Let me know if you are. We’re using the hashtag #nuvofelttemperature2018. Want to join in? A few more details here

So, the above won’t take many daily hours of crochet. They certainly won’t satisfy the hooking urge on most days, so I’m spending the rest of my time working through my stash. I have a few projects in mind which I’ll share from time to time, but first it’s a corner to corner exercise.

I’m not halfway yet, so there is a lot of crochet ahead! Joining in? Take a look here.

Oops!

For some reason the link to the Stashbuster didn’t work in the last post. It’s now fixed and you can find it here.

I’ll be posting more about the #nuvofelttemperature2018 later today. If you aren’t a crocheter you can adapt the idea to another technique – for example, patchwork, canvaswork or knitting.

If you have lots of small quantities that you wish to use up you may like this idea.

Stash, Scrap and Temperature!

So here we are at the end of the year. It’s been a year filled with crochet and more. I hope your year has been as good as mine. We have had our ups and downs, but I have tried to always look for the positive, and that has certainly brought me through.

Much of 2017 has been focussed on the Temperature blanket. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the journey, even though I doubted that I’d finish, and also wondered if I’d regret deciding upon Granny Squares for the duration. Well, the last square was made on the last day of November, and now I’m working on the border after a brief gap for Christmas.

It’s so large that it’s difficult to photograph – so I hope the above will give you a rough idea of the outcome. The tags will shortly be removed – they just showed me the top of each element as it was completed so that it all went together the right way around!

I’ve also had fun with the sidelines of Spirit blankets. The penultimate one is on my hook at the moment.

I’m planning on making another blanket for 2018, details here, and also some more Spirit Blankets – in the same vein as above – and you can read about those here. Of course I‘ll need to buy some more yarn for those.

Scraps and Stash are another couple of objects for the coming year! Both must reduce. A metre of yarn is ample for the centre of a granny square, so I think you will see some more small squares appearing, in fact, some have already been made! However, Stash requires rather longer lengths, and I have plenty of those too. Soon I’ll share the first of my Stashbusters. It’s coming along nicely. Stashbusters Anonymous is open for business, so why not pop over and join in?

 

First four days

December is under way. Are you ready for the festivities? I’m not.

The main temperature blanket is put away until I’ve finished the many pressing chores that I have to do in a short space of time. I’m allowing myself the luxury of one crocheted square a day for the time being.

Comparing last December with this month is proving to be rather interesting.

The first four days show similarities – but differences too. All these are joined with the ends dutifully sewn in, and later I’ll spend a little time with number 5.

Now it’s time to cook dinner.

Three down, one to go

I’m so glad I kept records! I wanted to choose a linking colour to join the four seasonal elements that have been finished with different colours – Parchment, Stone, Camel and Gold. I have no idea yet how the final blanket will be finished ( as far as the final edging is concerned) because once this current stage is over it will go into hibernation until next year, but the linking is essential at this stage.

Looking back through the list of days and temperatures I found that there were two that occurred in every month! Just two!!!

10 deg C represented by Lobelia and

11 deg C represented by Empire.

Guess which one I chose?

Empire, I have more in my stash!

So far I have edged and joined three strips. Tomorrow I’ll finish adding the last – and then it will be carefully popped into a paper bag until the festivities and more are over.

I have more to crochet, though, so I won’t abandon the blog for a while yet!

It’s coming together

This is a quick post, just to show you the progress on the Temperature Blanket. Here is November joined to it’s Autumn fellows. It wasn’t easy to photograph, and this line wasn’t really the best place, but it will have to do

It’s actually upside down, but the little taggy things kept getting blown by the wind and interfered with the pegging process. Stand on your head if you want to see it the right way up.

The next task is to see if my idea for joining it all together will in fact work.

Here’s hoping!