Sunburst Temperature Blanket

I’m really liking my other two temperature blankets but it’s been bothering me that I haven’t been using the daily lows. As I was looking on Pinterest I found this Sunburst Granny Square pattern from Thrifty Below that I think will work perfectly for a high/low temperature blanket. As I was working on the first square I modified it slightly by replacing the puff stitches with two double crochet stitches.

I wanted to use the same temperature scale as my Super Saver shawl (as my other Super Saver blanket will henceforth be known) to be able to compare and contrast the two blankets. Plus I thought it’d be cool to have a square all one color because the high and low were in the same range. It happens every now and then.

 

I worked on my first square…

…and then measured my first square. It ended up being 6 inches (15.24 cm) square.

 

Doing some figuring

A long time ago I got a little crochet reference booklet that says a typical queen size blanket is 102 inches by 120 inches. Using those dimensions and my 6″ square, I figured out how wide it would be with a certain number of squares if I wanted it to be 20 squares tall (120 inches). (I tried calculations for 16, 17, 18, and 19.)

Before I settled on how wide it would be, I had to then make sure there would be room for every day of the year. By multiplying 19 x 20 I got 380 squares (19 x 20 = 380), which would cover the 366 days of the year. That gives me 14 extra squares to work into the blanket this year (15 next year). It’s enough to do a square at the start of each month plus a couple other special days. Not sure what to do for those yet.

I now knew my blanket will be 19 squares wide (114 inches wide sans the border). The 19 wasn’t just pulled out of thin air. I got that number because of the 19 in the 19 x 20 calculation, since I already had the 20.

 

Working on multiple projects

I have run into a little snag in that when I catch up to my temperature shawl (remember the name change?) I won’t be able to work on my temperature blanket until the high changes to a different color on the shawl. Hopefully we won’t have long stretches of all one temperature so that I won’t fall too far behind on the blanket.

I know my husband is thinking I’m at least a little crazy for doing three temperature projects at once, but I’m having a lot of fun with it.

Stay tuned to hear how I plan on joining the squares, what color I’ll choose for the months, and what I have planned for those two extra squares.

 

 

Are you going temperature blanket crazy, too? Tell us in the comments. We won’t laugh if you are!

 

Note: Check on my current progress for this project here.