The year long knit along at Eat, Sleep, Knit this year is anything that tracks the daily temperature. I have wanted to do one of these for a long time. I thought it would be fun to use the same yarns and make one for myself using our temperatures and one for Nicole using their temps but since I calculated that one is going to use over 4,000 yards, I think I’ll stick to making one for this year. And, instead of starting on January 1 and keeping up with it on a daily or weekly basis, I just now started so I have catching up to do.
There were several suggested patterns but I was determined to do something different. I thought about making a striped cowl and using three temps per week. That would make it very long. Then I thought about doing Leftovers Cowl and using the high temp for the background and the low temp for the colorwork and then I came to my senses.
When ESK first announced the projects and their exclusive colorways for 2019, I ordered quite a bit of the Dream in Color Smooshy exclusives for the project.
Last night, I came to my senses, decided the colorwork cowl would require way too much work and was out of the question; the striped cowl was not going to use as much yardage as I need to use to get all the stars available for the project so I went back to Temperature Timepiece, which had been the original one I planned to do.
Originally, my plan was to divide the temps into 10 degree increments but after reading Denise’s notes on her first start at the Temp Timepiece, where she had bigger increments and switched to smaller ones to get more color, I decided to do the same thing. This is what I came up with for the temperature divisions.
As you might guess, I’ll have very few 0-30 entries, since I’m using the highs each day. I’ll have a whole lot of the last four. In fact, Nightshade (Sweet Georgia Tough Love Sock), is my color for 111 and up and it’s a discontinued color. I ordered three skeins of that. I figure I can get about 32.5 days from one skein so that will give me 97 days worth of Nightshade. If we have over 97 days of temps over 111 . . well, let’s not even think about that possibility.
I didn’t try to plan colors as far as colors you would associate with cold or hot but just chose the colors I like.
There are a few more colors coming (Petrified Forest, Charged Cherry, Pucker and Nightshade). It’s a bit had to plan for two reasons: (1) We have no idea how much of each color we’ll need. I’m certain I won’t need a whole lot of New York (the 0-30 degree color), but how much 66-70 will I need? I’m fairly sure I’ll need a lot of the 100 and above colors but hope springs eternal and I’d love to need more of the 90 degree colors than 100+ colors. (2) Planning the placement of the colors .. I kept re-arranging. Of course, you wouldn’t want two similar shades together (Amber Glass and Mexico – 6th from left and 4th from right, but who’s to know that one day our high won’t be 55 (Amber Glass) and the next day 81 (Mexico)? All that is part of what makes it fun. I’ve arranged them as best I can and am looking forward to this project. The projects where you really don’t know how they’re going to look til they’re done are the ones that hold my interest.
I have finished the planning stages and have started knitting. I’m on Day 3 (January 3) so I have to knit on this a lot til I at least get caught up.
Liz says
I’ve read that there will be an El Nino, perhaps a mild one, but still El Nino. According to a NASA drawing, that means a wetter and cooler summer for us in the south. So you may want to check out weather from the last El Nino in your area.
Here is an adjusted link – https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/images/content/209479main_elnino1_080128_HI . jpg – I put spaces around the period so that the link doesn’t land the comment in the spam bucket.
Joyce says
That will be pretty, colorful and unique!
Cinda Moulds says
How fun!
jatshaw says
I did this last year just with the high temp. wherever we were. It’s a pretty long scarf!
Rebecca in SoCal says
Aha, you’re the one who clued me into temperature projects! I started looking up quilts, and got some good inspiration. I saw blog entries from a woman in Fresno who mentioned that there isn’t that much difference in her temperatures throughout the year, so she did two: one for herself, one for a relative in St. Paul. I also live in a temperate area, so I’m doing two, too! One for local weather, and one for Albion, MI (father-in-law). I’m doing two different designs, in different fabrics (not the smartest idea ever). I did do gradients like on a weather map, but wish I had gone for varied colors, as the most common summer temperatures here are in the middle of my un-favorite range.
Judy Laquidara says
Oh, my! You are brave. I’d love to see them when you’re done.
Amy in PA says
I’ve always wanted to make one of these too. I’m almost done crocheting an afghan (I never crochet and I’ve sure never made something this large but I have a lot of acrylic people gave me so I’m using it). I don’t even know what stitch I’m using, 2 people now said they didn’t know it and I made it up but it’s pretty and fast. Maybe I’ll just kick off another with the temperature thing when I’m done! That pattern is so pretty, I saved it for the future!
dezertsuz says
What fun! I’m doing one in quilt blocks – similar to an actual calendar, and I did use the 10 degrees. There won’t be as much color variation, but that’s fine. Maybe next year I’ll use 5. Or maybe I’ll do something different then. =)