Knitted Temperature Blanket - December 2020

I heard about temperature blankets at the end of last year.  I've never made one before and it sounded like a fun long term project ... and I finished it this evening.

The idea of a temperature blanket is to knit or crochet a row (or a number of rows) on a blanket each day for a full calendar year.  The colors used each day correspond with the temperature outside.  The more colours you use to represent temperatures and the more varied the temperatures, the more colourful the blanket.

To be consistent, I chose to use the temperature at noon.  I debated whether to use Toronto's temperatures (regardless of where I am) or the temperatures of where I am (so it's a Teena ~ temperature blanket).  I decided to make a Teena ~ temperature blanket.  In theory, it would have been interesting to see how it turned out as I traveled often for work plus go on vacation during the year but with COVID, I haven't done as much travelling as I usually would in a year.

I'm using nine colours from Red Heart Comfort and Bernat Cozy Style yarn.

• Blue:  -6C or colder
• Green:  -1C to -5C
• Light purple:  0C to 4C
• Teal:  5C to 9C
• Red:  10C to 14C
• Dark purple:  15C to 19C
• Yellow:  20C to 24C
• Orange:  25C and higher
• Grey:  first and last rows and divider rows between the months

The warmest temperature (orange) was 35C in Toronto on July 2 and the coldest (blue) was -10C in Toronto (blue) on February 14.  In hindsight, I wish I had added another colour from 30C and higher ... who knew July would be the hottest in 86+ years and every day but one in July would be 30C and over?!  I thought about undoing the blanket to add a different colour from 30C onwards but that mean I'd have to undo about 40 rows to go back to the first 30C row.  Um ... no.

I cast on 200 stitches.  The first and last five stitches of each row are seed stitches (knit one, purl one, knit one, purl one, knit one).  In between, I'm doing stocking stitch (knitting the odd rows and purling the even rows).  I added two rows of seed stitch at the beginning of the blanket to stop it from curling (stocking stitch does that and I hadn't thought of that when I started).

December

Warmest in December:  9C (teal) in Toronto on December 11 and 24
Coldest in December:  -3C (green) in Toronto on December 15, 17 and 26

November

Warmest in November:  24C (yellow) in Toronto on November 10
Coldest in November:  0C (light purple) in Toronto on November 18 and 24

October

Warmest in October:  24C (yellow) in Toronto on October 23
Coldest in October:  2C (light purple) in Toronto on October 30

September

Warmest in September:  28C (orange) in Toronto on September 2 and 3
Coldest in September:  14C (red) in Toronto on September 19

August

Warmest in August:  32C (orange) in Toronto on August 10 and 24
Coldest in August:  20C (yellow) in Toronto on August 26

July

Warmest in July:  35C (orange) in Toronto on July 2
Coldest in July:  24C (yellow) in Toronto on July 13

June

Warmest in June:  32C (orange) in Toronto on June 10
Coldest in June:  17C (dark purple) in Toronto on June 12 and 14

May

Warmest in May:  31C (orange) in Toronto on May 26
Coldest in May:  5C (teal) in Toronto on May 8

April

Warmest in April:  15C (dark purple) in Toronto on April 13
Coldest in April:  4C (light purple) in Toronto on April 15, 16 and 21

March

Warmest in March:  18C (dark purple) in Toronto on March 29
Coldest in March:  0C (light purple) in Toronto on March 22

February

Warmest in February:  9C (teal) in Toronto on February 24
Coldest in February:  -10C (blue) in Toronto on February 14

 January

Warmest in January:  11C (red) in Toronto on January 11
Coldest in January:  -8C (blue) in Montreal on January 21