And we're off!

​Happy New Year! Welcome to 2025 and the very first day of the Janie Crow Temperature Blanket project. Lots of you have said you will be joining in with us so we thought we'd pop a quick reminder of what you'll need to begin your own, unique blanket.

First up, you'll need to decide what colours you're using for your different temperature ranges. We used a combination of Stylecraft Special DK and Stylecraft Life DK shades that we selected from our stash and used one of our Emma Ball Colour Cards to make a quick reference guide to our colour chart. If you don't have a colour card to hand we've created a printable  for you that shouldn't use too much of your ink, and you can find that by clicking here. Thick paper or card will be best and you'll need a hole punch to make the holes for threading your yarn through. ​

To determine your temperature ranges it would help to have an idea of the typical temperature range where you are. For example here in North London we typically don't see temperatures drop too much below 0 degrees celsius or go much above 30 degrees, so for our range we assigned a colour for anything below 0 and then moved in 2 degree increments up to 29 degrees and above. That gave us 16 yarn shades in total. We decided to use yarns from our stashes and came up with our colour chart on the basis of what we found. 

We can't tell you how much yarn you will need as this will be dependent on how many colours you decide to use and the temperature fluctuation where you are, but it would be sensible to start with yarn that you know is easy to obtain should you require more of any colour. We recommend using a DK (8ply) yarn.

Next, you'll need to start recording the daily temperatures for where you are in the world. It doesn't matter particularly how you do this but doing it the same way every day is the main thing. We are using the weather app on our phones to check what the maximum temperature will be for the day. You can log these temperatures any way you prefer but we will be creating a temperature recording chart for each month if you'd like to use it: you can find January's ​here. 

The Patterns

Once you have your yarn organised and your first temperature recorded you are ready to start crocheting! You'll need your 4mm hook (unless the yarn you are using isn't DK, in which case you'll need to use the most appropriate size for your yarn choice) and the patterns, of course!  

We used the free plain motif patterns that were released as part of the Spirit of Flora crochet along and you can find them over on the main Spirit of Flora page on the website here. You'll need to scroll about halfway down the page and you'll find the links for the written patterns under the photos of the third set of Spirit of Flora motifs. The patterns are in UK terms only but there are charts available too, with the key in both UK and US terms. 

How to allocate the days to the rounds

​For the weekly blocks we used the pattern for the completely plain square and made the Foundation Round and Round 1 on Day 1 and then worked a single further round on each of the following 6 days.

​The (monthly) floral blocks were made using Saffron for the centre and the petals were made using the yarn shades that represented the lowest and highest temperatures for the month. The rest of the square was made in the colour representing the average monthly temperature. See the image below for guidance:

You might choose to record a week's temperatures and then make your block in one go, or you may decide to work a round every day. It is all about completing the project in a way that works for you! Remember to work out the highest and lowest and average temperatures at the end of the month as you will need these for your floral squares. You'll also need to label your squares as you make them, so you can keep them in the order in which they are made. Small pieces of paper attached to the squares with a safety pin would do the job just fine! 

Later in the year we'll share more on our suggested layout and possible joining methods but in the meantime we hope you'll enjoy making a start on your blanket. Do share your progress on social media using the hashtag #janiecrowtempblanket25 and if you have any questions just ask, we'll be more than happy to help! 

Here's our finished sample, now with its border!

This is our final yarn usage, including joining and border.

Now all that remains is for you to get started! 
​
Bye for now! 
​
Emma & Gemma xx