Temperature Blanket 2021

Temperature Blankets have become extremely popular over the last few years, and although I've made one in 2017, I haven't made one since.

Until now! :) Today, I'll show you what my Temperature Blanket planning process looks like, as well as how January worked out.

What is a Temperature Blanket?

I'm sure this is redundant for all of you crocheters, but I have had customers in the past ask what a temp blanket is, so here is a quick description:

A Temperature Blanket is a blanket where every day of the year is depicted by a different color, depending on the weather that day. People use different colors and patterns, depending on what they like. There's no wrong or right way to make a Temperature Blanket, which is why they are so fun!

Planning my 2021 Blanket

Step 1: What temperatures do I want to keep track of?

Since I've made a blanket before, I had a good idea of what temps I would need to categorize. If you are making a blanket for the first time, you can always do a little research on high and low temps in your area in past years.

It's fun to have a large array of temperature categories. The more categories, the more color changes you'll have in your blanket. I have 15 categories, each in 5-degree increments. The lowest category is 35°F and Below: the highest is 96°F and Above.

Step 2: Pick my colors!

This is probably the most fun part of planning a Temperature Blanket!

Generally speaking, most people follow a color palette that goes something like this: Purples are the coldest, then blues, greens, yellows, oranges, pinks, ending with reds being the hottest.

I created my color palette for 2017 following these guidelines, except I took out reds (a personal preference) and put deep purple as the hottest.

My 2017 Color Chart ----->>>

This year I wanted to do something a little different from the norm. So, I just picked colors that I liked that coordinate well together. I decided to put softer colors as the colder temps and bolder colors as the highs. I'm also incorporating some orange this year, which is completely out of my comfort zone. I'm not usually a lover of orange and red. (I'm pretty sure it stems from having red hair. Those colors look terrible on me, so I've always kept my distance, tee hee!)

Once I picked out 15 colors that I liked, I made a little swatch to see what they looked like all together. I really like the way that the soft colors go together and the bolds go together. We will have to wait to see how they all coordinate once the blanket is done. Hopefully, I'm not spending a lot of time making something horrendous. ;)

From top to bottom, here are the colors I've chosen and their coordinating temperatures. All yarn is Caron One Pound.

2021 Color Choices:

35° and Below = Calming Pink

36°-40° = Mint Green

41°-45° = Robin's Egg

46°-50° = Lilac

51°-55° = Light Violet

56°-60° = Pale Green

61°-65° = Soft Sage

66°-70° = Hosta

71°-75° = Peach

76°-80° = Ocean

81°-85° = Purple

86°-90° = Grass Green

91°-95° = Midnight Blue

96° and Above = Living Coral

Step 3: Choose a style of blanket.

The trickiest part of a Temperature Blanket is deciding what style you want to do. They can get very big very fast! I learned this the hard way in 2017. I originally wanted to do a single crochet chevron blanket, where each row was one day of the year. It started off well enough, but by the time June rolled around, I was able to see that it was going to be 10 feet long!

So, halfway through the year, I decided to scrap it and switch to a Corner to Corner (C2C) pattern. I don't remember how many squares I did for each color; I think it may have been 20.

January 1st - March 3

January 1 - May 31

Finished C2C Blanket for 2017

Although I was really loving the way the chevron blanket was coming out, I'm happy with the C2C blanket as well. It ended up being 60"x90", and the family loves it on those cold winter days.

I wasn't planning on doing a C2C blanket this year, so I played around with a few ideas. At one point I was going to make a square for each day, with the low in the middle, the high for the outside, and a grey border. But, ultimately, I decided against it. The math wasn't working out on it, and joining squares takes me FOREVER. Since this is just a side project, I didn't want something that would be a complete time suck.

So, I chose to go with ole' reliable...another Corner to Corner. I don't make them often, and I really like the diagonal striping that a C2C makes.

Step 4: Getting the math right.

Yep, you read that right. If you are making a C2C, you need to figure out quite a few things before you can start. All of them require math.

First, how many squares are you going to do per day? 2021 has 365 days (not a leap year). If I want to do 20 squares per day, that would equal 7300 squares total on my blanket.

365 days x 20 squares per day = 7300 squares total.

Secondly, how many squares am I going to have across and down? This is important to figure out so that you know when to start decreasing. I didn't do the math on this in 2017 and my last few weeks didn't have the correct amount of squares. My 2017 temp blanket had 72 squares across, 102 squares down and ended up being 60"x90" (5'x7'6").

I will stick with 73 squares across; it should end up being around 60" wide. So,

7300 total squares ÷ 73 squares across = 100 rows down.

This is really all you need to figure out before you start, but I also wanted to see how big this blanket would be. For this equation, I actually use some old school algebra.

Yes, algebra. And I was not the best algebra student; the irony is not lost on me. So, lastly, I will use this simple equation to estimate the size of the completed blanket.

Using the info from the old blanket, I know that 73 squares will be about 60". But I need to figure out how long 100 squares will be. In this equation, x is the length that we are trying to figure out. So,

73 squares/60" = 100 squares/x

73 times x = 60 times 100

73x =6000

6000 ÷ 73 = 82.19

x = 82.19" which converts to 6.84'

So, the blanket's total size should be close to 5'x7'.

Now, I have all of my information. Each day will have 20 squares. This blanket will be 73 squares across by 100 squares down and should come out to about 5'x7' in size.

Now you're ready! I'm not sure if others keep track of the temps throughout the year, but I do. I live in South Louisiana, and our weather gets interesting, to say the least. To track this year, I'm writing down the day's low and high, and I crochet whatever temp we have the most over that day.

For example, on January 16th, the low was 37°, the high was 54°, but the temp for the majority of the day was 43°, so that's what color I crocheted. (These are the actual lows and highs, not the projected ones.)

Here's my tracking system. As you can see, it's all very high tech.

January 2021

Here is how January looks. Overall, I like it! I ended up making a small change though. I decided that I wanted to separate the months by a few squares of grey. Since my math was already done and the numbers worked out perfectly, I just "stole" 3 days at the end of the month.

So, January 29-31 had 19 squares each, instead of 20. Then I was able to end the month with 3 grey squares. I think I'll like being able to see where each month begins and ends.

A few interesting tidbits about January:

Low of January: 30°F

High of January: 73°F

Biggest Range: On January 14, we had 36° and 70° all within 24 hours. Crazy...

I hope this article has helped you in some way. If you want to start a Temperature Blanket, and haven't done so yet, you still have plenty of time! I like to use the Time and Date website to get past temperatures. And if you want to do a different style of Temperature Blanket, there are lots of posts/ideas out there.

Here are some Corner to Corner resources that I've found helpful in the past. If you have any questions on how to crochet a C2C, I highly recommend these articles.

Corner to Corner Crochet for Beginners by One Dog Woof

How to Change Colors in C2C Crochet by Make and Do Crew

How to Weave in Your Ends in Corner to Corner Crochet by Repeat Crafter Me

If you've already started your blanket, I'd love to see them!!! Either share them here in the comments, or on my Facebook or Instagram pages. And don't forget to tag me; you can be featured on my social media pages! :) And please pin and share, especially if you found this post helpful.

Love to all,

~Amie