Anniversary Temperature Blanket

Today has been a tough day for me emotionally. Lots of old memories cropping up this morning, after some time at my mother's house. I got the pleasure of looking at some old pictures of many family members and friends. I learned that my mom and her friend gave birth on the same day, at the same hospital. My mom's friend had a son named Jacob. I got to see a lot of pictures of all my grandparents and extended family. Some wonderful pictures of my father, who I miss dearly.

Even though, yesterday I worked on the Anniversary Temperature Blanket (for my mother), today I still felt the need to work on it. It's a bit theraputic to work on this particular blanket.

So far, this is what I have done for the blanket. The colors you see on the left are the highs for approximately 11/20/1984 to 12/28/1984 in Phoenix, AZ. The colors on the right are the lows for that time frame. I'm really liking the uniqueness of this project. I like that I don't have to plan as much for it, but it will still come out looking beautiful. Even my OCD is okay with this blanket, which surprises me. I love watching the rows develop in different colors.

This is my current list of temperature ranges for this blanket. I decided to work from end to beginning. The OCD in me said the top row of the blanket had to be the first day of the time frame I'm working with and that I couldn't make the bottom row into the top row, simply by flipping the blanket over. I marked holidays, their marriage and anniversary, and their birthdays, so that I could change up the stitches accordingly. Normal days are worked in single crochet. Holidays are worked in half-double crochet. Their birthdays, day they were married, and their one-year anniversary will be in double crochet.

This is my thermometer paper. I would never be able to keep track of this in my head. So I taped a small piece of yarn to the paper and wrote down the corresponding temperatures next to it. Hopefully this paper survives the duration of this project, as it isn't attached to a notebook. So far, so good though.

This is the basket full of yarn and supplies for this blanket. So far, as you can tell from the blanket, I've only used the same general colors over and over for each side (the high and the low), but I had one row of bright green randomly and as I approach the middle of November 1984, I'm adding some more green.

I am using various brands of yarn. I just grabbed a variety out of my stockpile. Some of it is Red Heart Super Saver, some of it is Impeccable brand, and I'm sure there are a couple of other brands in there. I am using an I hook. I wanted the blanket to be a bit more moveable, but didn't want it to become lacey-like, so I thought an I hook was good. I am a huge fan of an I hook for blankets.

Weather Underground is where I obtained the weather history for Phoenix, AZ. All you have to do is put in the dates, location, and bam!, it gives you all sorts of weather related information. If you are thinking about doing a temperature blanket, I highly recommend using Weather Underground to gather the information you require.

Thanks for checking out the blog. I will continue to update this blanket as time goes on. If you have any questions about it, feel free to ask me. You can use the comments section or email me at wednesdayscrafts@gmail.com.