2016 Temperature Blanket

Wow! I haven't posted to this blog in over a year. Time just goes by so quickly. Well, one of my New Year's Resolutions is to get my act together and restart posting my projects.

To that end, I'm starting this year off with a fun activity - a Temperature Blanket for the year 2016. What is that you ask? It's a blanket you make, choosing a for each row based on the temperature each day over the course of the entire year.

The first thing I did was come up with an overall range of temperatures and assign a color per 10° range.

In order to make sure that my overall range made sense, I first looked back at the temperatures in my area for the previous year. I used the U.S. Climate Data website to pull the historical data into an excel spreadsheet, then I averaged the high and low temperatures given for each day. I made the minimum and maximum averages over the year the ends of my temperature chart and created smaller ranges of 10° in between.

Next it was time to assign colors to those 10° ranges. Some people use colors typically associated with hot for the higher temperatures and cold for the lower temperatures. I decided to use something similar, mimicking the colors of a rainbow. Remember the acronym ROYGBIV? Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet.

Using that type of scale, I just picked colors I liked and put them in order. Here's my temperature chart that I created:

I am using Red Heart Super Saver yarn and chose the following colors:

70°F and above - Cherry Red

60° to 69°F - Pumpkin

50° to 59°F - Cornmeal

40° to 49°F - Honeydew

30° to 39°F - Jade

20° to 29°F - Real Teal

10° to 19°F - Lavender

9°F and below - Amethyst

You can choose your colors any way that pleases you. Be a rebel! Pick your colors however you want! This is YOUR blanket.

Now it's time to keep track of your daily temperature. I am using the average temperature for the day that is recorded on the Wunderground website. Every day, I look up the temperature from the day before and record it on an excel file. Here's a copy of what I started to keep track over the year:

Setting up this type of excel file is very easy to do to keep a record of each row you crochet or knit. 

Lastly, it's time to figure out a pattern. Of course, you could just make a blanket using a simple stitch, but I wanted to have a cool design in addition to the color by temperature concept. Since I crochet, I checked out Ravelry for afghan patterns that seemed simple enough but looked fun to make.

The pattern I decided on is the Groovyghan.

You are welcome to use whatever pattern you want! A few others I had been considering were these:

Sea Wave Afghan
Super Simple Throw
Textured Random Striped Blankie
Granny Stripes
Blackberry Salad Striped Afghan

I've created an event on my Purple Kitty Facebook page for anyone that would like to join in the fun with me and other crafters. Come CAL/KAL with us!

Here's the progress of my own temperature blanket today: