Knitted Temperature Blanket [Free Pattern]

My blog has been fairly quiet for a while, and one reason for that is because I recently finished my PhD in psychology! One part of our journey was a year-long internship in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. I decided to document my year there by making a temperature blanket. That means that you knit one row per day with a colour corresponding to the temperature outside. I had seen some finished blankets online, but actually had a hard time finding a good pattern, so I made up my own that I am going to share with you. Here are some of my tips!

Creating a Legend:
The first thing you need to do is create a legend. You can follow mine, but it might not be a good fit if you live in a warmer climate, or even another part of Canada. I would suggest making your own legend, or following one from Pinterest if you aren't into math.

First you need to choose the number of colours that you want to use (I used 9). I recommend using multiple shades of the same colour, and throwing in some neutral shades as well. I have seen some that are rainbow colours, but they are a little bright for me. I used reds, blues, and browns.

Next, you need to get a sense of what the range of temperatures will be for your location. If you go to the weather network you can find their monthly forecast page that will give you past weather data.

If you are in Canada, you can also look at this Government of Canada website to get an idea.

For my legend, I had -45'C as the extreme cold temperature, and 35'C as the extreme high temperature. I wanted the colour to change at 0' so I modified things that way. I only ended up having 1 day of -37 and colder, and I ended up having a couple days of +37 that I hadn't included in my legend, so I re-used another colour.

Take the extreme temperatures and subtract them to get the total number of degrees in your range.
E.g. 35 - (-45) = 80

Then divide that number by the number of colours you want to use.
E.g. 80 / 9 = 8 (ish)

Then make your legend, using a range of that number of degrees (8) for each colour. I also decided to add a second strand of lighter white yarn on days that it snowed. Here is how my legend turned out:

You should buy 2 balls of each colour, just in case. I only bought one ball of each colour, but ended up running out of a few colours. Unfortunately Michael's had discontinued the exact colour that I needed so I had to find a replacement. It ended up not being very noticeable because you are changing colours so often.

I recommend making a chart where you can write down the temperature/colour for each day and check it off. If you're anything like me, you may not be able to knit every single day and may need to do some catching up. I just had a little notebook and made a chart by hand.

I used the exact temperatures from the website above, and knit the row a day behind. I used the measured temperatures, not the windchill or humidex temperatures. I used the following temperatures:

Fall: Daily Average
Winter: Daily Low
Spring: Daily Average
Summer: Daily High




Now you're ready to knit! Here's how:

Materials: 
6mm (US 10) circular needle
Approximately 18 balls of worsted weight yarn (I used Impeccable from Michael's) Note: you will have yarn leftover, but buy at least 2 balls per colour

Directions: 
Cast on 167 stitches

Knit garter stitch (knit every row) across. Knit one row per day for a total of 365 rows.

Cast off and sew in all the ends.

Finished size is approximately 46" x 64".

Chunky Button Cowl (Crochet)

This is a pattern that I created for a super easy, crocheted, chunky button cowl (inspired by Pinterest of course). This pattern is really easy, and would be suitable for a beginner. The hardest part is probably finding buttons big enough! Enjoy!

Materials

1 ball Lion Brand Wool Ease Thick and Quick Yarn (or another really chunky yarn)

Size 11.5mm crochet hook (or around there, gauge isn't important)

Yarn needle

2 big buttons

Chain 18 stitches.

Turn, double crochet in 3rd chain from hook and to end.

*Chain 3, double crochet to end.*

Repeat from * to * until your piece measures approximately 35" (or until you are out of yarn).

Sew buttons onto the outside edge of one of the ends, so that when the scarf is wrapped around your neck, the two corners line up (see picture). Sew in loose ends and voila! 

Note that you don't have to make button holes if you are doing double crochet, you can just use one of the gaps as a button hole. 

If you don't know how to double crochet, you can do this pattern in single crochet, or half double crochet instead, if you do this, you will need to add button holes as so:

Follow the pattern as above, except use single or half double crochet. For single crochet, only chain 1 at the end of each row instead of 3, and for half double crochet, chain 2 at the end of each row instead of 3.

Once your piece measures approximately 33", chain 1 or 2, single or half double crochet 3 stitches, chain 1, skip 1 space, single or half double crochet 7 stitches, chain 1, skip one space, single or half double crochet to end. 

Continue to work the piece as above for 2 more rows.