How to Crochet a Temperature Blanket: Everything you need to know!

How to Crochet a Temperature Blanket: Everything you need to know!

You might have seen photos floating around Instagram, Facebook, or Pinterest of brightly colored blankets known as temperature blankets. But what are they? Why should you make a crochet temperature blanket? Can you start it later in the year? In this post, I’ll share all about what temperature blankets are and why you should make one!

I didn’t hear about temperature blankets until a couple of years ago when I got back into crocheting. I started seeing them all over my Instagram feed, and was super curious about them! I started looking into what they were, and loved the idea of keeping track of my entire year through crochet. Wouldn’t that be so cool to have a journal of your entire year reflected with your favorite craft, crochet? Let’s do it together!

 

What is a temperature blanket?

Temperature blankets are essentially journals of yarn that chronicle the daily high or low temperature for your area over the course of a year. Based on the average temperature range of your area, you’ll create a temperature gauge that assigns different colors for the various ranges of temperatures. Then, depending on what style you choose, you’ll then crochet either a row or series of squares in the color that represents the daily temperature.

 

Check out my Youtube tutorial on how to make a temperature blanket at:

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What do the colors mean?

You might be wondering what each of the colors means on different temperature blankets. Before you begin making a temperature blanket, you have to choose your color palette. Often people will do a rainbow color scheme, but I like to do the non traditional route and do more muted colors or have a variety of colors. You will want to stick with the same yarns though throughout the year.

Each color in your temperature blanket represents a certain temperature. You create a range of temperatures (see below), and assign a color for each range. I only wanted to do 8 different colors for my blanket along with a background color I chose. Each color is assigned to a range of 10 degrees, and are based off of the lowest temperatures of each day. I had the warmer colors represent the higher temperatures, and then the cooler ones represent the low temperatures. You have what ever colors you want represent the temperatures!

 

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So now that you know what a temperature blanket is, and what the colors mean, let’s get to how to crochet a temperature blanket!

 

How to Crochet a Temperature Blanket:

Start with your temperature ranges: Before you begin crocheting your blanket and choosing the colors, you’ll want to figure out what your temperature ranges will be. You’ll base your number of ranges off of the weather in your area. The first step to this is to pick if you will be doing your daily temperature based off of the high or low temperature that day. I chose the low, because that way I could have more colors involved.

My area rarely goes below 40 degrees in the winter, and goes all the way up to 110+ in the summer. So because my amount of temperatures didn’t go very low, I decided that I only wanted to do 8 different colors and ranges. Every 10 degrees I have a new color to represent that range. I would recommend using this strategy overall, especially if the temperatures get very low in your area. If you want to have a lot of colors in your blanket, you can have your ranges be every 5 degrees. However, I wouldn’t recommend that for areas that get below 0 degrees Fahrenheit, unless you want 20 colors.

 

Choose your yarn color palette: Once you pick out your temperature ranges, then you can pick your color palette. I went with a muted yet cheerful color palette. I liked the rainbow look overall, but I didn’t want to do bright colors. I used We Crochet’s Swish DK for mine, and they have the most beautiful colors!

Other color palettes I’ve seen range from doing: a pink, orange, yellow, and grey blanket in varying shades; different shades of one color like blue; or varying shades of blue, orange, yellow, and green. Any color can represent a temperature, so it’s all up to you on what colors you want to use! I’ve put together some samples of yarn colors in my favorite yarns below.

 

Pick out your pattern: Once you have your yarn colors chosen, then you can pick out your pattern that you’ll be using! There are a lot of different styles out there that you can do:

  • Rows – This is the most common style out there where each row represents a day. If you do this style, then you’ll want to make sure that you factor in that you’ll be needing 365 rows. Make a gauge swatch before you begin your project, which helps you to see how many rows you’ll have every 4 inches in the chosen stitch you’ll be using. If you choose a larger stitch like double crochet, then you will want to use a lighter weight yarn such as a weight 3. If you choose a smaller stitch like single crochet, then you can use a worsted weight yarn. 
  • Granny squares – Another common style is making a small granny square for each day. This can create a gorgeous blanket, but it will require more seaming, or joining as you go. You’ll want to do the same thing above with making a gauge square, so you know how large each granny square will be. Make a granny square that measures 4″ x 4″ and then you can see how large your blanket will be with 365 squares.
  • C2C Crochet – This is my favorite way to make blankets, and would make the perfect medium for a temperature blanket! You can have each square represent a day, or have several squares represent one day. Using this technique is perfect for if you want to make a temperature blanket, but don’t want to commit to having to do one large row a day. This way you can still make a temperature blanket without the huge time commitment. I am hosting a crochet along here on my blog to make a C2C crochet blanket! You can find out all the details about it at: 2020 C2C Mystery Quilt Crochet Along.

 

Record your weather data each month: Each day you’ll want to keep track of the high or low temperature for your area, depending on which one you chose. Some people like to record all of the data in an excel spreadsheet or keep track of it in a journal. If you’re worried about missing a day, or you’re starting late in the year, no problem! There are some awesome weather sites out there where you can look back at the temperatures for years back. You can search a day, month, or year, and find all of the temperatures you need. This comes in handy especially if you want to go back and make a temperature blanket to represent the year a child was born. Here are some of my favorite weather resources:

I’ve created a great temperature blanket printable that you can record all of your weather data in! Just sign up for my email list below, and you can get my temperature blanket printables for FREE!

 

Start Crocheting: Once you have your colors and temperature ranges chosen, your pattern, and your data, then you can begin crocheting! You can work daily on it or just fit it all in at the end of the month. I’ll be doing mine towards the end of each month where I can work on one month’s crocheting all at once.

 

Join my C2C temperature blanket crochet along!

Right now I’m hosting an exciting new crochet along here on my blog! It’s the 2020 C2C Mystery Quilt crochet along. Each block is 14″ x 14″ inspired by classic quilt squares, and includes a temperature blanket version where each block represents the entire month. The best part? You only have to crochet about 3-9 tiny squares for each day! Since one block represents one month, you don’t have to do very much work for each day! I’ll be revealing a new block at the end of each month, so by the end of the year, you’ll have a gorgeous collection of squares. If you join the crochet along in my Facebook group, you’ll also be able to take part in giveaways, Facebook lives, and more! Plus, we’ll all help keep each other accountable. It’s so much fun!

 

I hope that this post has helped you learn more about temperature blankets, and has gotten you excited about making them! If you make a temperature blanket of your own, be sure to tag me on social media @eclairemakery or use #eclairemakery!

Happy stitching,

Claire

 

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