The ladies of the group all seem to have read the same
Facebook and blog posts around the turn of 2017 into 2018 and the theme of a piece
of temperature work has come up. Enthusiastically last week we discussed the prospect of doing these and about six of us have got the ball rolling. This is going to be a sort of CAL within the group but we will all progress at our own pace and at our own skill level.
There are many blogs and Facebook posts about temperature
work and Pinterest is chock full of photos for example The Crochet Crowd, Lion Brand, Simple Knitting, Sleepy Eyes, and photos on Facebook and Pinterest. I have no affiliation to any of these sites but a good Google search will elicit myriad results to aid you in your research and give you lots of (too many!) ideas to get you started.
The idea is soooo simple …
Isn’t It? The idea is that
you work a set number of rows per day of an item in a colour that co-ordinates with the temperature. You can pre-decide a colour range/chart using perhaps eight to ten
different colors depending on your climate and as you work your piece, you will
get a beautiful variation of colour throughout the year. Depending on the
climate where you live, each color will probably correspond to between three and seven degrees. If like me you live in
Northern Ireland then temperatures will mostly vary between -5 to about 35
degrees. However, you may live in a
country where a temperature range of -20 to +40 is normal. Choose your colours wisely.
And they’re off ...
Or perhaps not …
Will I knit or crochet?
Will it be a scarf, a blanket or a tube scarf, a baby
blanket? A cat? 
Straight lines or zigzag? Hexagons or circles? Corner-to-corner? Granny square? Ribbed?
At what time each day should I take the temperature? Max temperature, or at a set time? What if I go on holiday, should still I record and use the temperature at home or the temperature wherever I am? Do I use the highest temperature each day AND the lowest temperature?
How many colours each day? Just one or two for the highest and lowest
temperatures? A granny square with three
rows using white always as the middle row and the other colour as per the daily
temperature?
Shades of the same colour such as a blue theme or a rainbow
of colours?
DK, chunky or aran?
Use up my stash or buy new yarn?
Get myself organised?
Which stitch? Doubles,
trebles … Use the same stitch Monday to Friday and change for each
weekend? Use a different stitch each
month?
Getting started was not as easy as first thought for
many of us. Two of us have frogged out
the first 10 days and started over again.
One has taken a dramatic turn and halved the number of daily rows as her
scarf was going to end up measuring over 3 metres/10 feet and another has
planned a new colour scheme. One other person
has a spreadsheet to assist her with colours and moods together.
One of our number, who lives at a great distance from the group but calls in with us when she can, will be working along with us and sharing lots of pics on Facebook. Hopefully she'll get to visit us often throughout the year.
It’s so nice to see that we are all working differently,
interpreting the challenge on a very personal skill level and colour preference. Most of us are keeping diaries and I hope to
update this blog monthly with pics of our work. It's going to be very exciting watching all the pieces develop.
I thought I had made my mind up but time to cut the
ties, I think, and start again …
(All pics courtesy of Pinterest and Google except for those depicting the work of ladies in the group.
