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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 PatternsOnce 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 roundsFor 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
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Will you join in with us?Have you seen temperature blankets popping up on Instagram and Pinterest over the last few years? Well, here at Janie Crow we have already made one based on one of Jane's designs and we would love you to join us by making one of your own over the course of 2025!  What exactly is a temperature blanket (sometimes known as a climate blanket)? Well, the idea is that for a whole year you crochet a row or round of a blanket in a yarn shade that you have assigned to a temperature range. You might choose to use your local temperatures or those from another destination. You may choose to assign cool colours like whites, blues and greys for winter temperatures, maybe greens and yellows for those warmer days in spring, through to warmer shades like pinks, purples and reds for those hotter summer days.  These are our colour choices on one of our Emma Ball Colour Cards - you can find them by clicking on the image If you choose to join in by making your own temperature blanket in 2025, then at the end of the year you will have a yarny record of the daily temperatures over the previous 12 months. Of course, differing climates may well result in a very different blanket depending on how colours are chosen. You can imagine that a blanket made in Switzerland will vary hugely to one made in Greece for example! For our Team Janie Crow blanket we decided to use blocks worked in the round, rather than work in rows and we thought that the plain motifs from the Spirit of Flora project were just the thing to make! If you visit the Spirt of Flora project page by clicking here you'll be able to download the free patterns we have used.  These are examples of plain motifs  Here is an example of a floral square - isn't it lovely? □ When making our blanket we made a plain block each week and made a flower one monthly. The plain blocks included yarn shades that represented the temperatures for that week, with each round representing the temperature on one day. At the end of each month an additional floral block was made to represent the lowest, highest and average temperature for the preceding month. In total we ended up with 64 blocks which enabled us to make a blanket of 8 x 8 blocks. What do you need to do to join in next year? Choose your colours and yarn: The very first thing you need to do is to decide on your yarn colours and, in order to do that, 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. MAX TEMP COLOUR YARN (ALL STYLECRAFT) (Degrees celsius) up to 0 Hint of Silver Special DK 1 - 2 Silver Special DK 3 - 4 Mint Life DK 5 - 6 Turquoise Special DK 7 - 8 Cascade Life DK 9 - 10 French Blue Life DK 11 - 12 Apple Green Special DK 13 - 14 Meadow Special DK 15 - 16 Lime Special DK 17 - 18 Buttermilk Special DK 19 - 20 Saffron Special DK 21 - 22 Copper Special DK 23 - 24 Pale Rose Special DK 25 - 26 Grape Special DK 27 - 28 Raspberry Special DK 29 + Cranberry Life DK If you want to use fewer colours, you could make your temperature ranges wider, but typically the fewer degrees are assigned to each colour the more varied your end result.  We printed out our temperature record chart and added it to our Emma Ball project folder along with a colour chart and other notes - you can find the project folders by clicking on the photo How to find out daily temperatures: You could use a thermometer in your garden and check it in the hottest part of the day or choose an online weather service set to your location and record the highest daily temperatures from there. How to calculate the average monthly temperature: Add all the temperatures for the month together and divide the resulting number by the number of days in the month. Gather everything you need ready to get started on January 1st 2025 Equipment: 4mm (US G/6) crochet hook Stitch markers Large eye darning needle Small labels to number your squares - you could attach them with a safety pin Notebook Patterns: You can find the free written pattern and charts for the motifs via the Spirit of Flora page here Yarn key - you can download a template here Temperature recording chart - you can download our version here We will post a suggested blanket layout in future blog posts. Yarn: 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. For our sample we used the amounts listed in the table below for the squares and used up leftovers for the borders.  How to allocate 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:  Get started!
If you fancy making your own temperature blanket next year we will be posting regular help and advice here on the blog and on our social media channels. If you would like to join in, remember to start recording your temperatures from the 1st January 2025. 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! We will be posting more as new temperature blankets take shape and we'd love to share some of your progress too, so please post your photos on social media and remember to tag them with #janiecrowtempblanket25 So what do you think? Are you in? Drop us a comment below if you plan to take part and of course, do ask any questions as we'd love to get them all answered before we start! HAVE FUN! Emma & Gemma xx |
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AuthorWelcome to my blog. Here you will find my email newsletter archive alongside any other general musings or information about events or new pattern releases that I wish to share with you! Archives
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