I’m a wee bit obsessed with temperature blankets right now, so one blanket wasn’t enough for me. I also have started on an anniversary temperature blanket to mark my husband, Buddy, and I’s wedding anniversaries. The temperatures start on the day we were married and run through each year we’ve been married. I’m also marking special days with thread held with the yarn.
Basic outline of a plan
I decided to make a blanket big enough for our queen size bed, but the idea of making a huge blanket for each year wasn’t a very pleasant one. We hope to be married for several years to come and that would be a LOT of blankets. Instead, I decided to make ten temperature strips for each of our first ten years of marriage in one blanket. (We’re in year nine now.) I thought it might help me feel better about our past (something I struggle with) by reviewing it as I make the strips. I plan on making a blanket for each decade past the first, too. Lord willing, I’ll have several blankets to make.
To figure out the width of the blanket, I looked up the standard queen size spread width (102 by 120 in/259 by 304.8 cm). I subtracted the border width (2 in/5 cm) from the longer dimension to get my amount to work with for the strips and spacers. I ended up figuring out that I wanted my strips to be 10.25 inches (26 cm) wide with 1.5 inch (3.8 cm) spacers in between. Most of these figures came from a test swatch where I figured out that my single crochet was 1/4 inch (.6 cm) high and the border was 2 inches (5 cm) high.
Each year’s strip will be separated by an inch or two spacer and a border of the same color will surround all ten strips when done. I was going to practice my heart stitch to try and put some teal hearts in the grey border, but my test swatch didn’t turn out as stellar I hoped it would. I have a year or so to either practice it more or find a different stitch to replace it.
Color scheme
The color scheme for this blanket is different than my 2016 blanket. I used a different yarn and I picked more colors, so I made a new temperature scale to match. For this blanket I decided to use my other go-to yarn, Caron Simply Soft. I picked a lot of colors partially because I wanted a very colorful blanket and partially because I can’t say no to more yarn. 🙂
The colors I chose (temperatures in Fahrenheit):
- 100+: Black
- 95 to 99: Burgundy
- 90 to 94: Autumn Red
- 86 to 89: Harvest Red
- 82 to 85: Red
- 78 to 81: Orange
- 74 to 77: Persimmon
- 70 to 73: Pumpkin
- 65 to 69: Mango
- 60 to 64: Light Country Peach
- 55 to 59: Lemonade
- 50 to 54: Sunshine
- 45 to 49: Autumn Maize
- 40 to 44: Soft Blue
- 35 to 39: Light Country Blue
- 30 to 34: Country Blue
- 25 to 29: Ocean (I think I’m replacing this with Royal Blue)
- 20 to 24: Dark Country Blue
- 17 to 19: Lavender
- 14 to 16: Iris
- 10 to 13: Purple
- 0 to 9: Fuchsia
Border yarns are Soft Grey Heather and Pagoda.
I also chose to use thread to mark birthdays, special events, holidays, deaths, trips, and our anniversaries; each with a different color. I crochet holding both the thread and the yarn for these special days. I’m using Aunt Lydia’s crochet thread (size 10): all the metallic colors plus black. I got to talking to Buddy and we thought it’d be cool to keep the gold thread that stands for our anniversaries to stay connected through all ten years. That would mean it needs to go through the spacer strips and I still have to figure out exactly how I’m going to do that.
Starting the blanket
I’ve gotten done with our first month of marriage. As I was working, I couldn’t help but wonder what was happening in each day I was stitching. We’ve lived a lot of life between now and then so it’s hard to remember some of the things that happened back then. Buddy was helping me remember events for each year and we had fun remembering the good times. I also dug out some old calendars of mine to help find more special thread days.
I do have other, non-temperature blanket projects I’m working on right now that I hope to post about soon. Until then!
Note: Check on my current progress on this project here.
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5 thoughts on “Anniversary Temperature Blanket”
I noticed that you haven’t chosen any greens on your color schemes. Any special reason? Also, IM not sure I understand what constitutes a year strip. Every day? One temp per week? I’m confused. Thanks!
I haven’t used greens on my color schemes because it doesn’t strike me as a temperature color. When I look at the other colors they strike me as either hot or cold. Green just looks…green. If I did use it, I’d probably put it in the middle, between the yellows and blues. Red Heart makes a couple greens I’ve used in other projects that I might use. One is Frosty Green (or Yoda Green as I call it) which may work better with a more muted scheme and the other is Paddy Green. Caron Simply Soft comes in a Sage and Light Sage that I’d probably use as greens in the same place.
My year strips are going to be one row a day, but thin so I can combine ten of them to make one blanket. I wanted to put borders in between so you could distinguish each year. If you wouldn’t want to go through that trouble I’ve seen others do anniversary-type blankets using only the temperatures of the anniversary or birthday for several years.
Hope that helps!
Margaret
Hi! Do you have a picture of your completed blanket? I’m just starting one this year and would love to see how your’s turned out! Thank you!
I’m am completely ashamed to say I haven’t finished my 2016 blanket yet. I’m nearing the end of October, though and hope to be done with it by the end of the month. As soon as I’m done with it I’ll get some pictures up.
Thanks for your interest!
Margaret