Temperature Blanket: Going Rogue!

We are now officially at the end of the third week of the temperature blanket: it is early days and Gemma and I have had a bit of a chat about how we’re settling into the project.  As it turns out, we have both GONE ROGUE!  What does this mean?  Well it means we’ve made some adjustments to how we are working the project and if we’ve done it we bet you have too!

Emma’s Change
 
I have decided to leave out the increases in Rounds 1, 3 and 5.  Why?  Well, I am not a neat crocheter.  Things do not come from my hook looking attractive and the more stitches I cram in, the less neat things get.  Reader, I found my wavy squares distressing.  Which is of course ridiculous since they block perfectly flat (and we have a lovely tip on blocking in a later blog post – watch this space) but well, why not?  As you know, these blocks are the plain blocks used in the Spirit of Flora project and in order for them to fit the stitch count of the beautiful floral blocks from that project, Jane designed them so that the size and stitch count were the same.  Since we are only using these blocks, we don’t have to worry about stitch count, so long as all blocks are the same, so we can quite happily leave out the increases if we want.  And I want. So that’s that!

​Gemma’s Change
 
Gemma’s is RADICAL!  She has chosen to use the Join As You Go method on her blocks!  If you’re not familiar with this, it’s exactly as the name suggests: you join your blocks together as you go along.  This means you don’t have a big pile of blocks to join together at the end of the year.  So a little bit more work along the way but not too much and no big joining exercise at the end. 

If this is a thing you’re interested in, we are going to focus on that in our next blog post.  If you’d like to continue making your blocks, just make them up to the last round:  don’t complete the final round and you’ll not need to undo anything.  If you’ve already made your blocks but also think that Join as you go is the technique for you, don’t worry, you’ll only need to make minor adjustments on the ones you’ve already made and we’ll cover that in the next post. You can fully complete block number 1 – you always start with one completed block.
 
We’ve made some videos with Join As You Go techniques on our YouTube channel here but again, we plan to make a quick video to show you the exact method Gemma is using and that will be available in a week or so.

So we’ve both made some changes already to make these projects work for us.  We found we’d also got some other little differences:
 
We live relatively close together – less than 80 miles as the crow flies – but our blocks are already different despite using the same colours for the same temperature ranges.  We discussed how we are collecting our temperatures and found those to be different:
 
Emma: using data from the week before and choosing the highest temperature for each day
 
Gemma: recording her temperature in real time at the mid-point of the day
 
The way we are making our blocks is different too: I am making my block at the end of each week.  Sitting and getting it all done in one go.  It’s lovely.

​Gemma is making a round a day – she leaves her yarn attached at the end of each day in case the following day uses the same colour too.   She explained that she likes that little hit of crochet each day as it’s her down time and is so effective in relaxing and grounding her.  So true!  We explore this theme a lot on social media actually and we know that many of us feel just like this.
 
The final thing we discussed was the temperature chart itself – compare and contrast:

​I started mine with every good intention, neatly and ordered.  I feel like this is how I approach all my resolutions.  As you can see, it very quickly went downhill, and now, only 3 weeks in it’s torn and crumpled and the writing is awful!
 
Gemma’s chart is – in her words “my oasis of calm on the chaos of my desk”. It’s truly a thing of beauty: neat and perfect and with (get this) A SPECIAL PEN.  I have such envy.

By the way, for those of you who are super organised you can find the February chart here

Finally, ends.  Now this we agreed on.  We agreed to not pass comment because we are terrible role models and should not be consulted since we have nothing good to tell you about our habits....

​We’d love to hear how you’re getting on – what changes have you made, if any?  How are you collecting your temperatures?  How many colours are you using?  Tell us everything – we are still very open to change, we’re only 3 weeks in after all!