Over the past decade or so, I’ve seen the trend of crochet temperature blankets rise and fall. I’ve always thought it was a fun and beautiful idea, but had no interest in making a giant, oddly long blanket with 365 rows of one stitch. And bright rainbow colors don’t really fit into my home decor. I haven’t made a large afghan since I was in college. There just weren’t any reasons I could find that I would actually want to make a temperature blanket.
Then 2022 began, and I saw more folks than in recent years talking about making temperature blankets in my many online crochet groups. I honestly kind of rolled my eyes and wondered why anyone was still doing that!?
Then I saw TLYarnCrafts Instagram post about finishing her 2021 blanket and my tune changed immediately! I loved Toni's linen stitch squares and her creative color palette. She had a free 5-day temperature blanket email course, and I was curious enough to sign up. I actually read the emails each day, and began to ponder doing my own project.
A few months back, I had come across some pretty tweed yarns at Michaels and picked up a few colors with no project in mind. I've recently made several pairs of mittens with the yarn and really love the cozy look of the tweed. As I pondered diving into a temperature blanket project, I knew tweeds would look nice in our home and I spent several hours searching online for tweed yarns in a fitting color palette I liked. I wasn't finding an affordable option for me all in one brand of yarn.
So, on Monday, I decided to go looking for tweed yarns in person. I figured I wouldn't be able to find a wide enough range of colors all in one brand, so I made up my mind to go with worsted weight acrylic tweed yarns and hoped to find enough in various brands that could work together.
Since I knew for sure I could find a few colors of worsted weight acrylic tweed yarns at Michaels, I started at Hobby Lobby. I found a few colors (ivory, sweet Dijon, navy, and dark grey) there in enough quantity.
I went to Michaels next, hoping I could find enough other colors and quantity to complete my palette. I found dark purple, light grey, and a lovely cranberry but was still hoping for a green and maybe a rusty orange.
I stopped at Joann's and found another neutral--a light tan that is slightly different from the ivory, and also found a nice almost sage-y/olive-y green. That gave me 9 colors and over 1000 yards each in hand and ready to go!
Once I knew for sure I had 9 colors, it still took me some serious deciding and figuring to come up with my color/temperature gauge. I decided to mix the neutrals in with the colors so I wouldn't have entire months/squares of similar colors. This is what I finally came up with: (all in degrees Fahrenheit)
85-75 Silver
74-64 Sweet Dijon
63-53 Green
52-42 Tan
41-31 Purple
30-20 Dark Grey
19- Navy
Ivory for square centers, outer rows, and connecting borders
I was so excited to get started, and it was the last day of January so I could make an entire square right off the bat! I didn't want the squares to be too huge, so I chose a 4.0mm hook and got to work. I finished my January square the night of January 31st, using the high temperature for each day. The next day I stitched in all the ends, and the day after I wet blocked the square. I'm pretty happy with how this first square turned out and cannot wait to continue this project this year!
