#temp blanket

Since I'll be starting a new temperature blanket this year, I figured I'd refresh and share the spreadsheet I used for my last blanket. It's set to automatically color code each row based on the temperature you input, fully customizable, and great for staying on top of your temp blanket and keeping track of where you left off! Available for download from Google Drive

Because I don't have enough projects on the go already 🙄🙄

I'm going to put silver or gold sparkled thread through on the first of the month and I might put gold thread through on birthdays - less sure about the gold thread though

This picture is atrocious because trying to photograph this blanket is like trying to herd cats. Speaking of cats, mine was laying on my lap while I was knitting and since it’s illegal to move a cat that’s on your lap, I had to improvise with the background of the photo lol.

An organized color chart I am using for my 2018 temperature blanket! 

This is my first time doing one of these, and I live in Southwestern Montana! So it’s.....been a really REALLY long and cold winter for me. That is why I used 12 colors instead of 7 or 8 like other charts use because it stays cold and doesn’t usually exceed 90 degrees! Having the temperature spread gives a better visual than solid blocks of color with a smaller color range, in my opinion.

I am going simple this year, and doing only rows of SC stitches (DC stitches if you use UK terms.) 

All yarn here is Big Twist Value acrylic yarn from Jo-Ann Fabrics!! 

With a final weight of 4 pounds 6.5 ounces (1.996 Kg) and measuring 41″ (1.04m) wide by 67.75″ (1.72m) long, my temperature blanket is done. It is double knit with three foreground/background switches per row, giving it four vertical stripes. Each row represents the high and low temperature for a day, it covers January 1 to December 31 of 2017. In the following picture January is on the bottom, December is on the top. Double knitting means that on the back of a cool stripe, is a warm stripe and vice versa across the blanket. 

Here is a photo with the temperature ranges I used, based on where I live in Southern California, Celsius is approximate, due to rounding but you get the idea.

The above yarns are all Knit Picks Dishie, from top left to bottom right: coffee, pomegranate, fiesta red, begonia, conch, clementine, creme brulee, honeydew, clarity, mint, azure, blue, navy, eggplant, mulberry, and lilac mist. The border was knit in clarity and mint. Wait.. what border?

A double knit border marking the year! It has a bit more contrast in person, but I meant for it to be subtle. The second picture shows off what I meant about the cool stripe having a warm stripe on the back, the blanket is folded so you’re looking at one side on the top and the other on the bottom. I made the chart myself in Excel, here’s a peak.

It looks wonky, but you get used to it. The number charts I used are free on Ravelry. I cut off the bottom of the 7 because it was taller than the rest of the numbers. It was my first time working with a color work chart, but it wasn’t difficult once I got into the swing of things. I also did a kitchener bind off (on 320 sts!) to match the cast on I used. I spent more time maneuvering and untangling my yarn tail than I did actually kitchenering. Let’s have an obligatory cat picture before I talk about what I would do differently.

If I were to knit another temperature blanket, I would definitely double knit it because it saves a lot of hassle when it comes to being neat about your yarn ends and it lets you cover both the highs and the lows. What I would do differently is I would have knit the actual color changing part as a panel inside a solid border (black on one side, white on the other maybe). The side edges of my project are kinda messy, all the methods for keeping them neat involved slipped stitches which doesn’t work when you’re changing colors almost every row. I would also pick a different yarn with a better rainbow range. I like the Dishie yarn, but it doesn’t have a good yellow or green and the colors they do have don’t flow very well visually, they’re not equal in vibrancy/intensity/saturation.

I do like the blanket overall, despite its funky edges and clashing colors. I’m glad to have it done, not because I didn’t like knitting it but because it took a lot of time (about 20 minutes a day, every day) and towards the end it became difficult to find a comfortable way to work on it. Plus, it counted as my first finished object on Ravelry for this year’s challenge! One more artsy picture to show us out. 

Standard temp blanket template, a row a day EXCEPT every row is divided in quarters and you do the avg temp for every six hours

You get to see the temp change over the day as well as over the year