December 2018 Temperature Project Update

It’s time for a temperature project update! You may have noticed I haven’t really updated my projects lately. That’s in part because I haven’t been working on my temperature blankets as much as I’d like. But with colder weather having moved back in it’s easier to work on them and I realize that having more blankets would be useful (since I don’t like turning the thermostat up) so I’m working on them consistently again. The more blankets we have the better!

 

Past/Current Projects

With the old temperature projects, I’ve decided it’ll be best if I work on them one at a time until I’ve finished them all. This plan has a few different benefits.

1. I’m not having to memorize and use different patterns at the same time.
2. It’ll help me get more progress quicker.
3. I’ll be freed up to get new patterns out for those looking for temperature blanket-specific patterns.

 

The projects I’ve put on the back burner are the 2016 Temperature Blanket (the Sunburst blanket) and my 10 year anniversary blanket. You’ll still see these projects, but I won’t be providing any updates until I start working on them again. If you’re really interested in these projects and not the others, sign up for my e-mail list and I’ll make sure to let you know when I’ve started working on them again.

Back burner project posts: 2016 Temperature Blanket and Anniversary Blanket

 

2017 Temperature Scarf

Original Project Post

This project was finished a month or so ago. I really wasn’t happy with the way it turned out. I lost stitches at a few different points (I really need to learn how to count my rows lol). The ends were a lot harder to crochet over than I thought they would be. They stuck out a lot and it generally looks messy.

 

 

 

So, all in all, it seems to be a project that looked better on paper than it did in practice. I think it would’ve looked a lot neater if I had woven in the ends as I went. That’s a lot of ends, though, and I’m allergic to weaving in ends. Not really, but you know what I mean.

 

 

2017 Temperature Blanket

Original Project Post

Before I could get back to working on this after I finished my shawl and scarf I needed to update my plan. For this plan I didn’t do anything fancy on the computer. I got out a piece of graph paper and filled in one date or event for each square.

 

I should note that I first planned out how many squares I had and what I was doing for each of the extra squares. With doing 20 squares across I ended up having lots of extra squares needed to fill in the gaps. Birthdays and seasons only filled in so many squares. I ended up needing to pick some big events over the course of the year to fill in the remaining squares.

 

The 20 squares across was honestly an accident. I believe in my original plan it was only supposed to be 19 across but then I got in a groove and had finished 2 rows before I realized that I had done 20 across. It worked out in the end, I feel.

 

So now that my graph is all filled out I’ll be able to easily tell when I get to a special square and to the end of the row.

 

This is the empty graph paper chart I made for my 2019 blanket. I’m including this instead of my 2017 one for privacy reasons. The filled out one has everyone’s birth dates listed and I really don’t want to have that kind of information running around.

Blank Temperature Blanket Chart

I finally bought all the extra colors I’ll need for the extra squares. I justified buying whole skeins of yarn for this because my current plan is to use the same color range and extra colors for a granny square temperature blanket for 2019. That pattern and color scheme will be featured in a post later this month.

 

 

I did work on my project, and here’s where I am with that progress:

 

 

 

Temperature Blanket Purchase

To help me better organize my temperature blanket yarn and projects I bought myself a new bag, an ArtBin Yarn Tote (Amazon affiliate link). It wasn’t crazy expensive and it’s been really useful. I really like it. I’m not going to talk a lot about it because I’ll be doing a post about my full experience with it some other time. In the meantime you can find this and other products and tools I recommend on this page.

 

 

2018 Temperature Project Update

For 2018 I had planned on doing a cross stitch project. I may still do that, but I never actually got started on it, even though I bought the materials.

 

Somewhat recently I bought some yarn to do a C2C (corner to corner) blanket for 2018. It’s pretty late in the year to be starting one, but I want to be able to finish it quickly. You’ll see a post for that pattern and color scheme soon.

 

 

If you want to keep informed of my temperature project updates as well as any new posts I’m making, sign up for my e-mail list. I’ll preview future posts, summarize new posts, and try to keep you up to date with news from the fiber world. As an added bonus you get a free temperature tracker for signing up!

 

 

How are you doing on your temperature project? Let us know in the comments!